Partway through breakfast Friday morning, Violet jumped at the sudden flurry of motion at the table. "Oh hello!"

An owl had just fluttered down onto the table in front of her — owls were huge in person, sitting on the table he had to be a good two feet tall. Tan and white and auburn and black, his feathers had these little stripes in them, two tufts of feathers sticking out from his head, over his eyes over to the sides, where ears might be. But, they almost looked like big eyebrows, it was funny! He had a small leather tube tied to one leg, probably holding a letter. She wondered who would be writing her, she didn't know this owl but he was too nice-looking to be from a public owlery, where Lasairín or anyone would go to send things to her...

"You have p-p-pretty eyes!" He did, a very bright, intense reddish-orange. Violet closed her eyes for a second, concentrating, a wash of silky warmth running through the middle of her face. She opened her eyes, which should be the same colour now, kicking her feet under the table and giggling. "Is that for me?" she asked, pointing at the scroll.

His feathers ruffled, almost like a shrug of his shoulders, and held out his leg. Violet quick untied the tube, unscrewed the cap and dumped the little scroll of parchment inside out onto her lap, and then tied the tube back onto the owl's leg — this was one of the nice scroll protectors, decorated with the Malfoy arms and stuff, so apparently it was a Malfoy who'd written her, but, you were supposed to send this kind back. She was curious why Aunt Narcissa was writing her (it probably wasn't Uncle Lucius), but she should send the owl back on his way first.

Once she had the tube tied back in place, she chirped, "There we are. Want something to eat first? Here, have some bacon..."

The owl snapped the piece of bacon out of Violet's fingers, and then he spread his wings — wow, owls were big — and with a rustle of feathers he was lifting away again, heading up toward the holes up by the ceiling. Watching the owl fly away, Sophie tugged on her sleeve to get her attention. "Is that from your mum?"

"Oh, no, D-d-d-raco's mum. Bleh."

Her face twisting into a funny look, she asked, "Why is Draco's mum writing you?"

"She's my aunt. Um, Mum's brother, Uncle mm-Pollus, he's Aunt Narcissa's father's father." Starting to turn toward her letter, Violet paused for a second, frowning. "Or, I mean, Uncle Pollus is my g-grr-grandmother's brother, 'cause, my father's mother was Mum's baby sister, so..."

"So Draco's mum is your real aunt and your pretend aunt?"

"Yep!" she said, smiling to herself a little — mostly just pleased she was making enough sense for Sophie to follow what she was saying. "Anyway, let me r-rread this, quick..."

Darling Violet,

I hope you're enjoying your first week at Hogwarts.
I'll admit, I was a little disappointed to hear you hadn't followed your mother and myself into Slytherin — I quite liked the thought of you and Draco keeping each other company. But all the same, I can't say I'm surprised you found your way into Hufflepuff instead. You may hear some less than pleasant comments from some people about your house — particularly from those who might have expected to find you in Gryffindor or Slytherin — but the dedication and loyalty exemplified by Hufflepuffs over the centuries is hardly anything to be ashamed of. It is said that few truly great mages have come out of Hufflepuff, but many good mages have, which I suspect you believe to be the greater virtue regardless, no?
I'm certain your mother told you to write her if you are having any difficulty, but I find myself worrying as well. Some professors may be less accommodating of your eccentric preferences — and that's not even to consider the other students! — and I know well how overstressed you can become. I'm sure your mother can look out for you well enough, but Lucius is on the Board of Governors. If someone is giving you special trouble, particularly if it is a professor, please don't hesitate to ask for help — a complaint from a member of the Board is likely to get results more quickly than one from a parent, even if she be a Lady of the Wizengamot.
While I have been thinking of how you're faring up there this week, those concerns are not why I decided to write you today. It likely won't surprise you to hear that Draco wrote us quite a letter a few days ago. He feels he should have been informed of your true name from the beginning, and is taking it being concealed from him for so long quite personally.
And what a masterful gambit that was! I had an inkling that I was not being told the full story, but my assumption was that Aunt Cassie was merely keeping private the details of your removal from your relatives' household. Never had I been given any reason to doubt the claims of your parentage and I certainly had no idea you were truly the Potter child! There weren't even rumours coming out of the Ministry, Director Bones must have kept it very close. I must commend you and Aunt Cassie on such a well-executed scheme.
Of course, I haven't taken the secrecy personally in the slightest — I understand well that a mother must now and then act most selfishly for the safety of her children. If I felt it necessary to protect Draco, Mercy grant me will to do far beyond simply to tell harmless untruths to family. But Draco is young yet, and can be quite stubborn in his own way. He believes he should have been told, regardless of whatever your mother may have asked you do, and is embarrassed over his somewhat foolish behaviour on the train. I understand his new housemates have also attempted to ask him about you, the need to repeatedly admit his own ignorance leading to further embarrassment.
I do not wish to make excuses for Draco, as I'm certain he will prove to be quite frustrating over the next weeks and months. I am only trying to explain the reasoning behind his behaviour. I realise this may not be fair of me to ask, but do try not to hold my son's foolishness against him. He will get over this, I'm certain, it will simply take time.
I expect you will have classes straight after breakfast, so I won't keep you any longer. Don't feel shy to write me if you need anything — even if it is only to ask to be sent along some of that strawberry drink you enjoy so much.

With love,
Narcissa

She frowned down at the letter, feeling weirdly guilty.

Aunt Narcissa might not blame her for lying (or carefully not-lying), but Violet did.

Sophie nudged her to get her attention again, Violet twitched, glancing around. "Are you okay?" Hannah asked. "Did Lady Malfoy say something bad?"

"No, it's fine, she, she, she, you know, only hoping sk-k-school is okay." She rolled the letter up and tucked it into her bookbag — she should write a response later, after class.

"Are you going to keep those eyes?" Sally-Anne asked

"Um, maybe for a little. Why?"

"They're just a little scary, is all..."

Looping her arms around Violet's and bumping their shoulders, Sophie chirped, "I think they're neat! How you can change things like that is so cool, I wish— Can you learn magic like that?"

"Um, like in seventh year." For normal people, self-transfiguration was very difficult and kind of dangerous, they didn't even start until NEWT-level, Mum said. "But it's, um, there's, g-g-gkh—" She pouted. "Magic to make things look different."

"Glamour," Hannh said.

"Yes, that, thank you. Those will be next year, in Charms. Mum said." Of course, Violet knew that because Mum had wanted to test if her glamours were permanent like the rest of their charms — they were, it turned out. On the one hand, that was going to make getting through Charms class without anyone noticing kind of difficult, but on the other hand, if her tea was getting cold she could just glamour it and it'd feel warm forever!

"Oh, well, fine, I guess I can wait 'til then. Even if we have to wait a whole year of Charms to get to the fun magic..."

"We're learning to make things fly soon," Leanne said, sounding a little amused. "And later we're learning a fire-starting charm."

"We're starting fires, in class? Wow! I love magic..."

Reaching for a piece of toast, Violet giggled to herself, her feet kicking under the table — how excited the muggleborns got about magic was so cute sometimes.

፠

Violet kind of thought a double period was too long for a class. This was partly just a her problem, she was pretty sure — she'd never liked sitting at a desk and listening to a teacher talk, without anything to do. It was even worse when she, you know, kind of already knew what they were doing? That hadn't really been a problem at an Ollscoil, because it was all stuff that was mostly new to her — and also in Gaelic, for the first year at least she had to really pay attention to follow what was going on — so she kind of forgot about it? sort of?

She remembered back ages ago, like, she thought the teachers back at Little Whinging had mixed feelings about her. A lot of really little kids had trouble sitting down and learning what they were supposed to, and that wasn't a problem for Violet — she had trouble with some subjects, sometimes, but she mostly did fine. And she was polite, sometimes kids were really mean to each other and to the teachers too, which was always so weird to her. She didn't understand why someone would want to do that, she always felt awful when she hurt someone, even by accident...

(Even tricking Draco she felt kind of bad about, despite still thinking, like logically, that he deserved being messed with sometimes.)

But Violet could also be really weird, which she thought also kind of made her frustrating to have in a class? Part of that was just not getting on with the other little kids very well — it hadn't helped that Dudley had seemingly been trying to make sure she wouldn't make any friends — but also classes tended to be kind of slow, because other kids had problems paying attention so didn't learn as fast as she did, so then Violet got bored. And when she got bored, it was hard to, just, politely sit in her chair and pay attention to class. It could get really hard to sit still, almost felt like it hurt, like she needed to move — no, she couldn't explain why, she even tried to talk about it with a teacher lady at an Ollscoil and couldn't figure it out (Shannon just said it might be an autism thing, so) — which was then very distracting, which made it even harder to pay attention.

It was better if she could do something, with her hands. One of her teachers way back at Little Whinging, she found out that letting her doodle or whatever during class was a good idea — that wasn't something Violet starting doing on her own, Ms Derby told her to do that, would even give her things to draw with if she didn't have any on her. (Ms Derby was nice! probably her favourite teacher back at Little Whinging.) She could even draw and still pay attention to what the teacher was talking about, as long as whatever it was wasn't too complicated, or she wasn't trying that hard with the doodling, one or the other. And it was good to keep her occupied, because that way she was less distracting to the other kids, less moving around and making a fuss.

Also, sometimes she made noises? She completely forgot about that, until a couple days ago when Sally-Anne asked if she knew she was humming, which, no, she hadn't noticed. That was something the other kids and teachers at an Ollscoil and Shannon all pointed out, just, she mostly didn't notice when she was doing it, she forgot...

This stuff hadn't been as much of a problem at an Ollscoil, because she wasn't so far ahead...but some of the classes there and Mum's extra magic lessons and some of Violet's own reading about things meant that she was way far ahead of where they assumed you were starting in, like, most of the classes at Hogwarts. Which she guessed made sense — after all, muggleborns knew basically nothing about magic, so they had to start at the beginning.

It was only Saturday, the last day of the first week of classes, and Violet being very bored was already starting to be a problem. Double periods, sometimes, could be almost painful.

Though, some classes being double periods were worse than others. Potions wasn't so bad. They were still doing basic, you know, stuff about taking care of your things and your lab space in a way that you didn't mess anything up badly, and some explaining of potions language and measurements and stuff. All of that she already learned in craft school — Professor Snape did have his own way of talking about things, but none of it was new. But, in their double period this morning, he had them doing stuff for most of it. There was some talking at the beginning, taking notes, but then for the rest of the period they were playing around measuring things, getting the right amount of water in a glass or the right weight on a scale, or peeling and slicing vegetables (from the kitchen, turned out, they were going to be soup later) in different ways, like they might see in potions instructions. They were doing things for most of the class, which at least helped to keep her hands occupied.

Also she thought it might help that the tables were high? They had stools instead of chairs, and, if she were standing up she could move around a little bit — little enough that she didn't get that painful need to move, in a way that hopefully wasn't too distracting for other kids. Violet stayed after class for a minute to ask Professor Snape if it was okay if she stood up during lecture parts too, and the only thing he had to say about it was to check if she could still take notes standing up, so.

It was only a few days but, so far, she thought she kind of liked Professor Snape? He wasn't nice, all cold and blunt and snappy, and he kept implying they were all stupid, but her feeling was that he was especially good about autism stuff. It hadn't come up much with other professors so far, and they at least had questions about it, like what the issue with whatever was, but Professor Snape just took whatever she said about things that bothered her and what she had to do to pay attention better at face value. Which was nice! It didn't even really click to her before that people would always question her about this stuff, like they thought she was just making it up for some reason, until suddenly someone, just, didn't. That first time they talked back on Monday she even got a little tripped up over it going so easily, and she wasn't really sure how to think about that? How someone could actually be kind of a mean person but also nice about a particular thing most other people weren't, it was just a little bit confusing.

(Also, he did help Mum set Violet up with Shannon, so, there was that.)

She also had double periods for Charms and Transfiguration and Defence, and those were all bad in different ways. Defence was maybe the worst, mostly because Quirrell's stammering made the lecture go even slower — she wasn't being mean about it! she knew talking was hard, she was just saying that as a thing that was true — and also her mind magic ring tingling put her on edge. Double Defence yesterday had been a little exhausting, first thing in the morning and she'd already kind of wanted a nap.

It was hard for her to say whether double Defence or double History was worse — Defence was uncomfortable, yes, but History was ssooo boring! Like, so boring it hurt, Violet hated it.

She didn't like hating things. It made her feel icky.

Violet came with a plan this time. She'd brought stuff to draw with, yes, but the problem with that was being very bored made her want to do more interesting drawing, which then made it harder to listen to what Professor Binns was saying, especially since it was so boring. The best thing to do would be to bring some embroidery work, because that was repetitive enough that it would give her something to do with her hands that didn't take much brain power, so she could listen to Professor Binns at the same time. But embroidering was far more obvious than just drawing, and sometimes teachers didn't like you taking extra things into class, so she needed permission first.

Last time, she wasn't expecting the end of the class, and by the time she was up and moving to ask him if she could bring things, he'd already been disappearing back through the wall. This time, she was prepared — she knew what time class was supposed to end, she'd get up right away and run up to ask him. Hopefully she'd catch him before he left again. She wrote a message to herself in the corner of the page to remind her, and she was keeping an eye on the time, she shouldn't miss it.

Violet noticed that Draco was glaring at her — still annoyed about her little trick, she was sure — but she didn't let that distract her too much. She had a mission!

As the last few minutes of class came up, Violet stopped drawing, sitting there watching Professor Binns. She wasn't even listening that much, honestly, the energy sizzling through her too noisy to really pay attention, feeling all coiled up tight like a spring ready to pounce. (She remembered Sparks crouched down with her bum up in the air, wiggling, and forced herself to stop, because thinking about kittens being adorable was distracting.) There were three minutes left, Professor Binns still burbling on in his low, flat, empty voice...and then two minutes...and then one minute...

And then the class period was done, Professor Binns folding his ghost-notes closed and assigning a reading. He wasn't even done talking yet, nobody else moving (some of the kids were even still asleep), and Violet leapt up to her feet — too quickly, she accidentally banged her thigh on the edge of her desk, ow ow ow...

Hitting herself like a stupid person slowed her down a little, Professor Binns was already turning away from the podium. "Wait!" Violet scrambled around, weaving between her desk and the podium — she sat right at the front today, trying to be strategic. "Um, um, um, I w-waanted to ask you something, Professor!"

Professor Binns stopped, about halfway between the podium and the blackboard, slowly turned around to face her. He blinked at her for a second, confused. "A question? Ah, a question!" Some of the tiredness seemed to dribble out of him, perking up a little, something almost like a smile pulling at his super wrinkly, see-through face. "Well then, Miss Rosier, what do you wish to know?"

"Um...I'm Miss Potter," she said, pointing at herself. It'd been a while since someone got her name wrong — the Blacks were a family everyone knew, and of course this last week no one forgot, what with all the 'Boy' Who Lived stuff. Though, she guessed Professor Binns was probably already dead when that Hallowe'en happened, did he even remember that?

"Of course, excuse me, Miss Potter — I've taught so many of you young ones!" he said, smirking a bit. "Sometimes the mind likes to play tricks. But I imagine you didn't intend to test my memory."

"Oh, no, um... I was j-j-jeh, er. In looong lectures, I can b-be, um, um, fidgety, and, I was wondering about em-em-embra-embroidery? if I can bring some, to kih-keep me busy."

Professor Binns's face twisted into an expression Violet had no idea how to read. She wasn't great with faces to begin with, but it probably didn't help that his was partly see-through. "While it can be a fascinating subject to investigate, I'm afraid our curriculum will only tangentially feature the development of such cultural matters as the craft trades."

"Um, no, I d-d-d– er, I'm not..."

While Violet was locked on the invisible consonant that was in syllables that 'began' with a vowel (so annoying), Professor Binns said, the extra energy quickly draining back out of him, "I'm sorry, Miss Peakes, but if you wish to know more about the history of the textile industry, I would suggest you ask Professor Bobbin. Now, enjoy your weekend, and I'll see you in class on Tuesday." She tried to stop him (the stammering didn't help), but in a few seconds he floated back out through the wall, and he was gone.

Staring at the spot Professor Binns disappeared through, Violet frowned. Who was Professor Bobbin? Also, their next class was on Wednesday...

...

Well, she was going to go ahead and take that as a yes, she was allowed to bring embroidery work to class. If he couldn't even remember her name, he probably wasn't going to notice if she was working on something else while listening to the lecture.

After dinner, the Hufflepuffs and the Ravenclaws (minus a couple people) went up to the library to wait until it was time for Cambrian class — they could have maybe gone somewhere that it would be easier to actually talk, but by now they all had homework to do anyway, even if it was only readings, so. They'd been at Hogwarts for about a week now, and basically all of the Hufflepuffs were friends already — except Zach, who was so stuck-up sometimes (he also wasn't here anyway), and also kind of Lily, because she was super shy — or were trying to be, anyway. It was a little hard sometimes, because Violet was weird, which she knew could make people uncomfortable, and also some people (especially the boys plus Sally-Anne) were still a little awkward about the not being a boy thing, but other than that, they got along fine! Mostly, Zach was so stuck-up and Justin was super posh and kind of clueless sometimes and Leanne could be a little snippy, but it was working so far...

Ravenclaw was mostly all kids Violet knew already, from one place or another, with only a handful she hadn't. Some of them thought the being a girl now stuff was super weird, but they were mostly over it by now. Mostly, they were already back to gossiping about whatever like normal, or asking her questions about being a metamorph or art or whatever, or talking about class. So, Violet thought the Violet Black is Harry Potter stuff was going pretty well, actually! Some people were still pretty angry with her for being wrong — mostly Gryffindors, who also weren't happy that she wasn't a Gryffindor too (like, some people assumed she was going there? for reasons?) — and a handful of people Violet thought were still super creeped out about the girl stuff, but it wasn't that many people, and they mostly didn't make a big deal about it. It was going fine!

Mum had been all worried, and yeah, people had made a fuss about it, but it hadn't really been that bad...

Padma was starting to look a bit better, Violet thought. She looked a little less messy, since she helped her relearn how to, like, do knots and plaits and stuff — apparently she forgot how to do the ties inside of her robes too, it wasn't just her shoes, so yeah, that helped. Also she thought Padma looked less tired, like she was sleeping better? Violet wasn't sure why the bond being broken should mess with her sleep, but, she wasn't the expert. She was still pretty quiet, not talking much yet, but Violet thought she was doing a little better. Which, good, that was good, Violet had been worried. The soul-bond thing some twins and triplets and stuff had sounded like a very big deal, losing it must be hard...

Anyway, after sitting around for a while reading and chatting about whatever, they picked up to go to class, leaving behind the couple people hanging out with them who already spoke Cambrian. This was their third Cambrian class now, and by this point Violet was starting to understand that it was going to be even easier for her than she thought at first. The only time she'd learned a language before was Gaelic, and, she didn't realise this at the time, but being dropped in somewhere where they only spoke the new language and having to learn it as you go was kind of intense? Especially going to a school that only used that language, like, less than a year later, that was like at the extreme end of language-learning stuff — it worked, obviously, Violet picked up Gaelic super fast...but she'd been learning like all the time, whenever any of the neighbours were around, or even trying to talk in Gaelic with Mum and struggling through books written in it and stuff, doing something with it basically every day that they weren't travelling somewhere...and even then she was with Muime, so she was still practising then too.

Learning a language in a classroom wasn't like that. Obviously, the amount of time was much more limited — instead of doing it all the time, basically whenever talking to anyone, it was just three hours of class time a week, plus homework. And the class went at normal people learning speeds, which were kind of slow? Like, it was the third day and they were still doing basic saying hello stuff, and Professor Smethwyck coaching them in how to say words properly...

Cambrian did have some funny sounds in it, that weren't in English at all, but that was getting into another reason this was going to be easy for Violet: she was further ahead than she thought. She hadn't really thought she was? But, she didn't think about how, just, hearing the language every once in a while, and picking up a few words from Mum or whoever, had already given her a feel for Cambrian that other people weren't going to have. Like, the funny sounds, even the ones that weren't in Gaelic, that wasn't really a problem, because she'd heard them enough times already, and she could already do the accent and stuff just by copying what she heard before, and it wasn't the same as Gaelic in how things worked...but that was mostly because Gaelic grammar was actually more complicated...

She expected she might get confused sometimes, like, accidentally say the Gaelic word for something when she was supposed to be using the Cambrian one that just sounded kind of close, but she expected this was going to be super super easy for her. Which was a problem — when something was easy, she got bored, and when she got bored she started getting fidgety, which just made her a distraction for everyone else.

But, well, there was an easy fix for that.

Violet got through the super late class half paying attention to what was going on and half doodling in the margins of her notes — being late in the evening only made it harder to stop her thoughts from wandering. At this point, since she was bored in class so often and playing around to distract herself, she'd filled up some of the other bowls in her inkwell with other colours, so she could make her drawings more colourful. It was almost like she was making illuminated notes, with big pretty capital letters and flowers or whatever else instead of bullet points, decorating the margins, which was maybe a little much, but it wasn't like she had anything else to occupy herself with, and also it was pretty, so.

When class ended, people got packed up and started moving to the door right away. It was late, curfew was only in like fifteen minutes, people probably wanted to get downstairs and get into bed as soon as possible. Instead of making toward the door, Violet left her bag back at her desk, skipping up to the teacher's desk at the front — Sophie and Lily and Hannah were hanging back with her, curious, but that was fine, this one wasn't private. "Hello, Professor. Can, can, I have a question."

"This won't be too long, I hope," Professor Smethwyck said. He was an older man, like, not super old, but there were lines on his face, maybe grandpa age? (Grandpa age, for mages, which wasn't super old.) His hair was very blond, and long, tied back and with a few narrow little plaits in it, beaded caps dangling from the ends. He was nice! All warm and smiling, his voice deep but soft, kind of...tingly? Violet didn't know what to call it, he had a nice voice. "I would hate for you to be late getting down to your dorm and earn yourself a detention."

"It will b-b-be short, I think. Um. I'm, I'm, I'm...can I bring emboidy to class?" Violet frowned — that came out wrong. "I mean, mm..."

"Embroidery? You mean you wish to do embroidery work in class? I'm certain that would be better done in your own time."

"Yeah, b-b-b—" She cut herself off, took a deep breath, tried to talk slowly and clearly. Professor Smethwyck was nice, he wasn't going to be mean about her talking badly, she didn't have to be nervous — besides, getting all nervous just made it worse. "Classes are slow, for me, not only this one, but all of them. And when it's too slow my thoughts wander, and I g-g-g-g– fidget." The word came out slightly wrong, like fih-zhit, but she did that on purpose, so she wouldn't get caught on the G-sound. "I know it c-can be, um, distracting, for the others. So...something to d-do with my hands? Keep me busy."

Professor Smethwyck was frowning a little, nodding — Violet thought that was maybe more of a thinking kind of frown. "Yes, I have noticed you seem a little antsy at times. And this will solve the problem? It wouldn't do for you to simply sit in class stitching away and participating not at all."

"I can d-do both — back at an Ollscoil, my t-tih-teachers let me do other stuff, like that." Once she was done talking, Violet noticed she accidentally switched to Gaelic in the middle there, saying the Academy like flipping a switch. "Oh, um, I mean—"

"That's all right, I speak Gaelic," Professor Smethwyck said, in Gaelic. He did have a bit of an accent, but not an English-sounding one, she thought his first language was actually Cambrian — he had a little bit of a bouncy Celtic accent speaking English too, so. "So long as you work quietly and don't make too much of a distraction for your classmates, I don't see why not. I will call on you now and then to make sure you're paying attention."

"Okay!" she chirped, smiling up at him. "Thank you, sir."

"Of course. It's very responsible of you to give some thought on how to best avoid causing a disruption in class. Though I imagine by this point you have some experience in managing these things."

Violet pouted. "Yeah, sitting through classes is hard sometimes..."

"It can be, yes," Professor Smethwyck drawled, smiling. "Take five points for Hufflepuff and run along — you're going to miss curfew."

"Right. Thank you, P-p-prr-pff—" She gave up, and just waved goodbye at Professor Smethwyck before walking off to grab her bag.

When she caught up with them, Sophie said, "You're not that distracting."

"I've been trying really hard. I c-c-caan't k-keep that up forever. It's better if I have something to do."

"That makes sense," Hannah said. "I was thinking, do you think we'll have time for a bath before bed? I wasn't sure if I wanted to use up any time on our day off — I don't know if we're hanging out or anything?"

"You c-c-can go without me, I want to ww-write a letter, to my parents." Now that Cambrian class was over, that was the end of the first week of school! She should write home about how it went, before she started forgetting things.

"Ooh! Tell them I said that photo of them in that thing was super cute, and also I want an invite to the wedding." More than once now, Sophie 'joked' about whether she was coming to the wedding — mostly just excited to have friends and being silly about it, maybe.

Violet giggled. "It was though! They're always c-c-ch– bleh, I love them..."

And that's the last of it! Phew.

Anyway, bye, see you next time.