21 Jan 1992
The next week, everyone showed up again, and seemed slightly less reluctant to be there. Professor Sprout considered this to be a success, but things were only superficial so far. She wanted them to build lasting connections.
She decided that this week was all about building on the previous one, and ended up asking the house elves for sandwiches made from cheeses other than cheddar. She also decided that as it was only January, it was exactly the right season for soup, so acquisitioned several different types. The lentil soup was fairly bland yet hearty, and the pepper soup was spicy and had an abundance of flavour. This spread, she hoped, would give all her charges something they wanted to eat while also being different from the usual fare from the Great Hall. Soup had been banned in 1976 after an irate Severus Snape had emptied a bowl of parsnip soup over James Potter's head, glared at Sirius Black and then stormed out of the room. She did not know what that had been about, but had missed soup ever since. She had once attempted to get soup reinstated in 1979 claiming that everyone deserved soup and that it would be a comfort to the students during the war. The Headmaster had claimed that it was a question of hygiene and she had proposed him tucking his beard behind his ears. Strangely, this solution had not been popular.
The group sat down in exactly the same formation as the previous week in the same not quite circle and Professor Sprout decided to give the same type of brief remark as last week.
"This week, we will be focusing on Home, and Adrian will be speaking."
Adrian cringed slightly, before straightening up and saying, "I live at my parents' estate, Morrel which is in Cumbria. It was bequeathed to my grandfather, who was the youngest son of The Earl of..."
Professor Sprout very quickly realised that her success in the first week had very likely been a fluke. Adrian Pucey talked about the home in which he had spent most of his childhood like he was an estate agent. He spoke with none of the passion or spontaneity that Cho had spoken with the previous week. He was...boring. Clearly everything had been rehearsed and he didn't sound like he believed what he was saying. It was all 'reputation this' and 'Bagnold, a dear friend of my Mother's'.
"...and that is why I think my house is such a wonderful place to live. It is a testament to the principles of Palladian architecture thus demonstrating my own family's influence in the symmetry and structure of our magical society. It has state of the art self lighting candles..."
"I think that's enough Adrian," Professor Sprout finally said. "Does anyone have any questions?"
The entire group sat in silence. Adrian looked panicked and was clearly not comfortable with either the question or the answer. His fingernails which were already nearly non-existent, were going through more shredding. The others were clearly not quite sure what to do as they had never been to an estate showing before. She wondered whether they knew anything about Palladian architecture. She did. She had been to a National Trust property with Charity Burbage, an old friend and muggle studies enthusiast once and although she had mainly been there for the café, the tour had been interesting as well.
"Are there…portraits?" Addie had presumably just said the first thing that had come to mind. She had clearly been looking around in an attempt to avoid looking at any one person throughout the talk, and on the walls of Professor Sprout's office there were a variety of pictures of plants and a large unmoving portrait of Helga Hufflepuff. Unlike most likenesses in the castle, this portrait did not move as the art of capturing a person as they were at a certain point of their life in canvas had not yet been invented when the portrait had been taken.
"Yes," Adrian said reservedly. "Since the days of the first earl, my family has been collecting portraits from throughout the magical commonwealth. We have the third most extensive collection unique magical portraits of subjects ranging from Ministers from the last 200 years, all of whom have stayed during hunting weekends, to members of my own family. Family portraits of this generation are in existence but will not be mounted permanently until after any members of my immediate family are dead. Smaller photographs of my immediate family are available on the antique piano in the drawing room, and demonstrate some of the best developments in colour photography. We have a selection of portraits of men and married women from my own family, as well as simplistic profiles of any unmarried women."
"Erm…" Cho said awkwardly.
"Money," Adrian replied gloomily. "It was not considered to be worthwhile to spend the amount of money it would cost on portraits for unmarried women who would be expensive to keep at home anyway."
Not for the first time, Professor Sprout thanked Merlin for lesbianism.
"Plants?" Was all that Neville could say.
"Yes, there are plants," Adrian replied. "We cultivate award winning potatoes, radishes and carrots on our estate. We additionally have a number of magical plants in our greenhouse, but at least ten of them are murderous and it is no longer safe to go inside."
"What on earth did you do to those poor plants?" Neville wondered. Professor Sprout agreed. A magical greenhouse required constant maintenance to ensure that the latent magic of a typical wizard settlement did not result in situations such as these.
"My grandfather outlived my grandmother, and he couldn't bear to go inside after she died. They briefly had one gardener, but what they really needed was someone passionate." Adrian replied hollowly.
"Oh, I'm so sorry for your loss," Cho said comfortingly. "My mum was the same after my dad died."
"Thank you."
Suddenly, Cho's face changed expression for the slightest moment.
"Quidditch," she said.
"Yes, what about it?"
"Well you talk about home like an estate agent," Adrian blushed, "but Quidditch is your favourite thing, isn't it? Do you have a place to play Quidditch at home?"
Suddenly the atmosphere in the room changed completely. Cho and Adrian got to talking about Quidditch and the merits of an open air Quidditch pitch as opposed to an inadvisable undetectable expansion charm. From what Professor Sprout could hear, they agreed on the fact that an expansion charm was not only inadvisable due to its instability, but also due to something called "Snitch routing" which seemed to be of the utmost importance.
Neville, in turn, began explaining magical greenhouses and their development and maintenance to Addie who seemed content to listen to what he said and occasionally interject with a comparison to her Aunt and Uncle's short lived muggle allotment. Apparently, they had eventually decided that it was entirely too much work, and what did they need with vegetables anyway? There had also been the matter of there having been an article in the Times on middle class communists having allotments and becoming vegetarians (the horror) and that it was really a thing for readers of The Guardian, anyway. She also mentioned that she and her brother, Harry, were in charge of maintaining it (in the before times, she had said wistfully) and that they had always had a wonderful time. This was surprising to Professor Sprout. She had just assumed that they had always hated one another, but it seemed that their close relationship had broken around the time they had started Hogwarts. She wandered what had caused it? It was none of her business. Neville seemed to be very pleased to learn about irrigation, which he had once seen referred to as "one of the great triumphs of muggle ingenuity". Professor Sprout thought the same. The things that the muggles did to compensate for not having any magic were truly remarkable.
By the end of the meeting, she had come to a conclusion. It was not that the first week had been an unmitigated success and that all other meetings were going to pale in comparison. It was instead that she seemed to have selected four people who were able to speak at length about something, but only if they were incredibly invested in it. Additionally, she made a mental note: Adrian Pucey had the potential to be the world's least engrossing museum guide. If she were to meet him in a National Trust property, she would run the other way.
Adrian was fully aware that he was boring. A childhood of being drilled on what to say in specific situations had robbed him of any sort of spontaneity. He tried to have a natural tone of voice, to sound as though he actually cared about what he was saying, but there was always something off about him. On his first day of Hogwarts, two years ago, he had arrived on the train anxious about the change, yet excited for the chance to go to the school his parents had loved so much. At a school, he could learn to be normal. He had assumed that that was the intention of such institutions.
Then he had recognised someone he knew. He had braced himself. In life, there are moments in which important friendships are made, he had figured that this was one of them. He and Cassius Warrington were the same age. They had spent quite a lot of their early childhood together, as their parents had worked together. They had learned how to play Quidditch together. He had decided that this common history was just the thing to build a strong friendship on.
"Alright Warrington?" Warrington had spun around to look at him.
"Alright Pucey?" The recognition on his face was clear, so Adrian figured that this was an in.
"You found a carriage yet? Father told me that it's important to claim one before all the good ones are gone."
"My father told me the same. Montague is around here somewhere. If you like, we could find a carriage together."
"That would be great."
They had got a carriage together. Montague, who had also been around during their common childhood experiences had been just as Adrian remembered. Larger than anyone else, and meaner than them as well, but they had plenty in common, so he tried to talk to him.
"How have things been, Pucey? It must have been 5 years since the last time we saw each other! Still playing Quidditch?"
Now there was a subject that he could talk about. He had, at length, and when he had finished, both Warrington and Montague had stared him.
"You've got a bit of an obsession there, mate."
"It's just a hobby," he had said quickly. "My dad took me to a game and we've not been talking about anything at home since."
It was true that he had at that time recently been taken to a game. Neither of the teams had been his team, but even the strategy had been interesting to him.
"Any other hobbies?" Montague had asked.
"Of course," he had replied, racking his brains to see if he could think of anything. Nothing immediately came to mind. Drawing? No. Throwing stones at birds? Definitely not. "I play the piano sometimes," he finally blurted out. This had also not been a lie, but he had also not played the piano in quite some years. It really hadn't been up his alley, and his parents had eventually realised that, and decided to stop wasting money on lessons that were clearly not having any effect on his skills in any way whatsoever.
Warrington had started talking to Montague again, "I think I'll try and get into the team next year. Slytherin always has a good team, but if I get into Hufflepuff, I won't bother. Can you imagine actually being in Hufflepuff?"
Adrian could, actually. His parents had been a cross house relationship. His mother had been Slytherin and his father Hufflepuff. He had wanted to say that he would be ok with being in either house. However, these had been the first people he had interacted with on his journey to Hogwarts. He had decided that if they were to say that Hufflepuffs were wastrels and the house for where the odd balls went, he would say yes. He had made friends, and he was going to do whatever he could to keep them.
AN: I've been having a bit of a weird week and have spent the past few days stranded in rural Scotland on holiday with my parents as my only company, but one positive of that is that I have had endless motivation to write the second year of this story. Near our final destination and all the local garages have gone on holiday. Luckily we're unstranded now as my aunt (who was coming up here anyway) had her car and we can use it now. Thank goodness, and thank goodness for food delivery. The Highlands continue to be very inspiring, but I prefer it now that we actually have enough food.