Chapter four - Miss Dubois and Bébé Rouge

Finally it was Saturday. Gina went to breakfast with Jonne after sleeping in. Promodores students were used to wearing their own clothes in the weekends and they got a lot of stares when they sat down at the Gryffindor table. Gina had expected all students to wear their own clothes on their days off, but most Hogwarts students were wearing an incomplete uniform this morning, mostly just a blouse and blue trousers and skirts. Gina was wearing her at the moment favourite summer dress, a short yellow dress, and Jonne linen green shorts and a white t-shirt. It looked liked they both had decided together this morning to make the most out of what could very well be the last sunshine this year. They stood out, to say the leasts, especially when the Beauxbatons students joined them a few minutes later, in full uniform. The two blond girls smiled at Gina when they sat down.

'L'ove the dress,' one of them said. Gina smiled at her.

Jonne yawned widely when Gabriela asked what the others were planning on doing now it was Saturday. Gabriela always wore navy on her days off.

'The same as yesterday, Gabriela. Non but this dumb nörtti over here follows classes remember.' He poked Gina, who was used to him calling her a nerd.

'Thanks Jon.'

'You welcome sweety.'

'You are suppose to be studying during the week,' said Gabriela sternly. 'It's not a year off you know. You have to prepare for the tasks, do a lot of self study. Señor Gonzalez is expecting to see a work planning, or so I heard.'

Jonne didn't seem perturbed by this information. 'I just want to get past the first task so I don't have to do exams,' he said. The Promodores students had been told the previous school year that all champions who got past the first task were exempted from end of year tests, for the tournament surely would take up all their time and attention. The others would return to Promodores at the end of the school year to take their E.D.M.C.'s (Excelencia Dominio Mágico Conocimiento examinaciones, excellence mastery magical knowledge exams), the highest Promodores offered.

Gina wasn't interested in exemption, as she had already arranged that she would go to Promodores for the exams, and than come back to Hogwarts afterwards to take the N.E. , but she knew José too was very eager to get out of the exams. They had already done their H.M.A exams at the end of the sixth year, and you could apply for most jobs with them.

'We ar' all finished with ex'ams,' said the blond girl from Beauxbatons who had complimented Gina's dress. She was very pretty and Gina saw Jonne look at her with interest. 'We take our ex'ams after síex years of study. So we 'ave done them already.'

'So what's the seventh year for?' Gina asked.

'Oning skills you see fit,' the girl said. 'We use it for job preparation also.'

'What do you like to do after school?' asked Jonne in a slightly husk voice.

'I don't 'now yet,' she said a little haughtily, but Gina could see her eyeing him with interest too. The curly-haired boy from Beauxbatons sitting next to her was looking at Gina. He smiled at her when she looked in his direction.

'Are you the princess than?' he asked.

Gina pretended she hadn't heard him.

'You could come to the library with me later Joni.'

'Koomikko.'

'I thought I was a nerd.'

'You are both. A nerdy comedienne. There is a party tonight, at the lake. Much more fun. Are you coming?'

'No. Ya he tenido suficientes casos graves esta semana', mumbled Gina, thinking of Herbology. I've been bothered enough this week. 'I am going to the library,' she said, switching back to English.

Jonne gave her a stern look. He never really understood why she complained about attention she got from boys. But Gina did not enjoy being eyed or called pretty. There was no satisfaction in it for her and sometimes made her feel downright uneasy. Most of the time it made her want to pull out her wand and show them she wasn't just a pretty face.

'Oh, I would like to go to the lib'rary too,' the other girl from Beauxbatons said eagerly. 'Mind if I help you look?'

'Not at all,' said Gina smiling. She stood up and held out her hand. I'm Gina by the way.'

'Jill Dubois, pleased to meet you Gina.'

They made their way upstairs, chatting.

Jill told her she had a hard time adjusting at Hogwarts, missing her friends who were back at Beauxbatons, and her pet dog, Bébé Rouge. Gina could relate. Regardless of the less than friendly feelings she had for Alejandro at the moment, she still missed him and Sandro very much. They had studied together for hours daily for six years on end, and studying without them just didn't feel the same. They had discussed everything interesting they had read passionately, and her Spanish schoolbooks were filled with scribbled notes on background information, theories, questions she wanted to research, new spells they had invented and the occasional sweet nothings Alejandro had written in the margins when they had sat in the silent department at the Promodores library.

When Gina and Jill finally found the library, off a corridor on the first-floor, they looked around in awe. It was a dark, labyrinth-like place with high ceilings, with many study tables nestled between the rows and rows of wooden bookcases. Gina, feeling elated, walked over to a near row of bookshelves. It covered everything on Trans-Species Transfiguration. She took out A Rough Guide to Delicate Trans-Species Problems. On the first page in the upper corner was a large sticker with the Hogwarts crest.

A warning: If you rip, tear, shred, bend, fold, deface, disfigure, smear, smudge, throw, drop, or in any other manner damage, mistreat, or show lack of respect towards this book, the consequences will be as awful as it it within my power to make them.*

Gina smiled. She was starting to like Hogwarts very, very much.

They sat down at a quiet table in the back of the library and Gina got out her Defence against the Dark Arts book. She felt a familiar pang of guilt when she saw the scribbled comments in the margins. There were a quite some pages Gina didn't feel comfortable looking at anymore, but she hadn't gotten herself to get a new book either. What had she been thinking... She pushed the feeling away and started working on her essay on Epoximise for professor McGonagall, occasionally having a whispered conversation with Jill, who was reading in A Fail-proof Way To Trick Trolls. Gina soon discovered Jill was a bit shy and a little naïve. Smiling at Jill, Gina realised she had found a very sweet, and very innocent replacement for her former study palls. It gave Gina a good feeling.

Severus was sitting at his desk in his study, trying to grade second year essays on the uses of Dragon blood. It was a dull task and his mind kept wondering off to his seventh year Ravenclaw and Hufflepuff class last Friday. Or to one particular, foreign student...

He had been impressed with miss Aldaya brewing a very decent stage one Double Helix potion -from memory and with three ingredients that didn't even belong in the potion- picking out ingredients that had more of less the same properties as the ones she forgot, and using an additive to counterbalance the side effects that were undesirable. She was really quite extraordinary. She had also almost swore, showing a temperament he already suspected. He had had trouble not to smile.

He was well aware that, within a week, his thoughts about miss Aldaya had taken slightly obsessive forms. He needed to keep his mind straight, but he kept seeing her in the corridors, in the great Hall, in his classroom... And what did it really matter if he thought about her more than was... professional. He wasn't hurting anyone with his thoughts. It wasn't like he would do anything. She was a student after all. Hís student...

It had been slightly embarrassing too to have to admit to himself that he was, not... amused to find out she probably had a boyfriend. Not amused not really covering it. He had been seething, and taken out his frustrations on a couple of first year Hufflepuffs who happened to walk past him, carrying sandwiches in a napkin. When he was done with them, telling them it was under no circumstance allowed to take food outside the Great Hall, both of them had burst into tears. Honestly...

Miss Aldaya had been sitting with the other three Promodores students at the Gryffindor table again, which in itself had slightly irritated him, when one of the boys had put an arm around her and had kissed her. In her neck. She had pushed him away, smiling slightly, seemingly unperturbed. The boy, a blond pretty boy who probably was a brainless-

Anyway. Severus wouldn't know, as he hadn't had any interaction with him yet. But the stupid boy smirked and left his hand on her lower back, which she didn't object to, continuing her conversation with the other girl from Promodores and eating her lunch.

When Severus sat down at the high table, stabbing his stew unnecessarily viciously, he thought he had been naive. Of course she had a boyfriend. She was breathtaking. With her hazel eyes and-

He stopped himself. He wasn't going there. Not even in his thoughts. She probably had to jinx boys away from her all the time. He had heard the older students talking about her in the corridors, quickly pausing when they saw hìm of course. He might have given a detention or two to boys who had spoken about her in a particular, inappropriate way. Forgetting for convenience that they were students too and it wasn't actually, in fact, inappropriate for them... But he gave detention a lot, so that did not really matter. They had probably deserved it for one or other misbehaviour, he just had not caught them doing those things.

But it did not cheer him that he would have to watch her boyfriend touch her the rest of the school year. If they would start walking around holding hands he might start throwing things. Or cursing -certain- people... Of course, her boyfriend would dance with her at the upcoming-

Sighing, he turned another essay he graded with a five and pulled the next one towards him.

The next morning after breakfast, Gina and Jill left for the library again, where Gina struggled through her Herbology homework and Jill looked up things that might help her in the Triwizard Tournament.

Gina really enjoyed being at Hogwarts. The library had countless interesting books that would keep her well occupied for the rest of the school year if she wanted to read a significant part of them. The teachers were very knowledgeable and talented and although in some ways the regime at Hogwarts was a lot more strict than Promodores -not allowing students to practise magic outside classes accept assigned spells for their studies, and having a rather formal culture- in other ways it was a lot more relaxed than Promodores. Even though the Hogwarts students had a lot of work piled on them, Gina felt they were not pushed in the way she and her fellow students had been at Promodores, pushed to get the most out of it every learning opportunity, to master things to perfection, to do a lot more background study. Hogwarts, with it's many roaring fireplaces, hobby clubs and long meal slots so students could eat and chat with their friends at their ease, felt much more friendly. There even was a buffet each meal, and afternoon tea in the weekends, which amazed Gina when she came in the Great Hall on Sunday.

As though he had felt Gina thinking about him the previous day, Gina got a letter from Alejandro while she was chatting with Jonne and Jill, cups of tea and cakes in front of them. It was getting colder outside every day, and the fireplaces in the Great Hall were now in use all throughout the day, making it warm and comfortable, especially compared to the cold, dark hallways. Without pausing her conversation with Jill, Gina threw Alejandro's letter, unopened, in the fire.

*This is copied from wiki/Hogwarts_Library