14 Jan 1992

Professor Sprout decided that after the first meeting, they would begin by meeting every Tuesday. This would hopefully be enough for them to all get to know each other, while not overwhelming them. She arranged great big trays of sandwiches in her sunny little office, and when lunchtime came, they filed in one by one, barely acknowledging one another. She gathered her notes.

"As this is our first-time meeting during a lunch time, I think I will tell you all about how this is going to work. The first ten minutes will be the time for getting to know each other. Every week a different person will talk about a specific subject. After that, you will be able to go back to absolute silence if you wish. Why don't we start with..." she ran her finger up the list she had compiled at random until she landed on one, "school, which should be a nice easy one to start with considering that you are all always at school. The first question is: What is your favourite subject at school?"

The system she had instituted in the first meeting remained. This was not due to its efficiency in ensuring that only one person was talking at once. That had been assured by the fact that none of them seemed to want to talk to each other at all. Regardless, they all sat in the circle of chairs that she had arranged (there were so few of them that it was barely circle, but she assumed that this didn't matter) and dutifully did as she requested.

Cho Chang, a second year Ravenclaw took the bear gingerly from Professor Sprout before sitting down again.

"Hello everybody," she said nervously, looking down at her lap as she did so, "My name is Cho," Professor Sprout had added that part just in case people had forgotten, "and my favourite subject is Astronomy. I like Astronomy as it connects us to long ago cultures who used the stars to navigate and even sailors up until recently. My mum used to tell me about the stars when I was younger and where we lived when I was younger, the sky was clear enough to see the stars clearly and we would both look up at them and think about my dad who was always away because he used to be in the Navy."

She finished what she was saying then looked uncertain.

"That was good Cho," Professor Sprout reassured her. "Now, does anyone have any questions for Cho about her favourite subject?"

"Well, what's your favourite thing about stars?" Adrian Pucey, third year Slytherin, asked her after taking the bear.

It wasn't the most creative question, but it opened a clear path for Cho who now had plenty to say.

"That we don't know everything about them yet. There's always things being discovered about them. Did you know that the muggle scientists have been theorising for decades that not all stars are hot? There might also be cold stars. Just a few years ago they were able to use special heat cameras to find that there was an object that might be a star that is colder than expected."

"The muggles can do that?" Neville Longbottom, first year Gryffindor seemed floored by that and completely forgot the bear.

"Oh yes, muggles can do lots of things!" Addie Potter, first year Hufflepuff spoke for the first time. In their previous meeting she had simply pointed at the purple butterfly on her rucksack and they had all understood. "They have very very advanced telescopes that can see very far away but they also have microscopes that can see very close and XRays and MRIs that can see through skin!"

"And they've been to the moon!" Cho added enthusiastically. "In 1969 Neil Armstrong was the first person to set foot on the moon."

"So it's not made from cheese then?" Professor Sprout said musingly.

"No, it's very dry and rocky. I don't think anyone has ever tried to eat a moon rock before."

"If it were made from cheese, then I wonder how it would be preserved? Wax?"

Cho bent over as if she were in pain and started making choking sounds. It eventually became apparent that she was laughing. "That's...ridiculous...Professor...Sprout!" She managed to choke out. "Waxing…moon!" Professor Sprout smiled to herself. This seemed to be going well. She had managed to get them to talk to each other, and one of them had even laughed!

"If the moon were a cheese, what would you eat it with anyway? Are we thinking about it being a sharp cheddar? Squishy mozzarella?" Clearly Neville Longbottom had the right questions.

"I was thinking Cheshire," Adrian clearly had the right answers. "My father once went on a trip and brought some back with him. He said that it was the best thing ever invented by muggles. Normally we just have cheddar at home. Most of my family focuses on wine, and I'm not good with strong flavours."

Cho and Addie both nodded their agreement, but Neville looked affronted. "I take after my gran. She has tabasco on the table at all times at home, and carries it around with her in her bag."

"Do you like the food here? Cos I do. It's nice and beige."

Adrian and Cho both agreed with Addie.

"Beige. So beige."

"The beigeist."

"Could do with something more than salt," Neville said, before getting out something from his bag. "I really do take after my gran." It was a bottle of tabasco, and it was almost empty. "I just got this new bottle before Christmas, and that much unflavoured turkey just about cleared me out."

"Ok everyone," Professor Sprout interrupted before they got into discussing the merits and demerits of flavour. "This has been a truly fascinating game of associations taking us to places I didn't quite imagine, but let's get back on topic." It had been an incredibly successful meeting. They had even forgotten about the bear.

The rest of Cho's day was uneventful, as was pretty much every day. She stayed away from communal areas and hid by herself in a secluded spot by the lake. The weather was rather brisk and she felt chilled from the moment she went outside, but a quick warming spell fixed that without much difficulty. It was nice to get away from everyone for a while. The library was full of Ravenclaws, as was the Ravenclaw Common Room and her own dormitory. There were of course other places to go, but she wanted to be outside where it was truly quiet. In the castle, there was never a moment of peace. Everyone always expected everyone else to be smart all the time. In this smartness, there was no room for learning something because you were interested in it. She recalled telling another girl in her class about how looking at stars was basically time travel as the time taken for the light from each star was longer the further away it was. It took millions of years for light to reach earth from the Andromeda Galaxy. If the sun were to explode, it would take 8 or so minutes for humans on earth to know about it. The class she had mentioned this in was Astronomy, which made it relevant. They had been learning about the Andromeda Galaxy, so it was especially relevant, however, it was not on the syllabus, so it was not well received by Marnie Parker.

"Why would you even read about that?"

"Because it's interesting and relevant," Cho had answered, because it was.

"It doesn't matter if something is interesting if it's not on the syllabus. I only learned about something if it was on the ministry guidelines when I went to primary school. Learning about something not on the syllabus is weird."

She said most of this quite loudly, and Professor Sinistra came over to see what they were talking about.

"What's going on over here?"

"I..." She tried to say. "I..." but everyone was looking at her.

It was so rare that a Ravenclaw wasn't able to answer in class that she gained from that day, a nickname. This nickname had followed her ever since, and always reminded her of the embarrassment she had experienced. She knew that in other houses, it would not have been such a big deal. Sometimes people did not know the answer or found themselves at a loss for words, but people in Ravenclaw always knew the answer, and never got so anxious that they could not speak. What she had been talking to Marnie about was by now long forgotten, but the name had stuck. Choke Chang.

She hadn't been sure about lunch club when she was first told by Professor Sprout that she should attend. She had assumed that it would be awful, and that people would think she was weird when she talked about what she was interested in. Instead, they had related what she had just said to what they understood, like she did. People always thought that she was weird and self-obsessed when she did, but she wasn't quite sure where those rules had come from. Maybe these people didn't follow those rules either.

Later in the day, when people were still going in and out of dinner, she made her way back to the library, which was by now far quieter, and finding a table, she settled down with a book on ancient names for stars. Apparently, the name 'Antares' meant 'rival to Ares' in Greek, due to the similarities between the two. She appreciated the pettiness of it. She was initially aware of others at other tables. Was that Longbottom over there making himself inconspicuous at a table with other Gryffindors from his year? As the hustle and bustle of the library around her faded away and she settled into reading about the things she liked most, all her previous considerations of what other people thought of her faded from relevance. Why did it matter that things weren't part of the curriculum? It was enough to be simply content with learning things because they were interesting.

Hello anyone out there who is reading. My name is Mackie, and this is the first Harry Potter fanfiction that I have shared here. I have written others, but have never ended up finishing them sufficiently. For this story, I challenged myself to write the entire thing before publishing it, and for the first time in my life, I have succeeded. So enjoy all 19 chapters of this, and leave any feedback (even constructive criticism) in the comments. Thank you for reading.