@ FlyAway;
Rosina smiled, scrunching her nose a little at Franklin. She would never tell Gwen, but she hated the way Franklin smelled. She must preferred Winston, even if he sometimes didn’t prefer her; cats were so temperamental. She let her fingers brush Winston’s fur as she rested her head on the back of the seat. “Oh, you know, I should walk through one more time and then just make sure they get to their dormitories. Although, I’m pretty sure we’ll let the 5th year prefects do that last walk through. There has to be some advantages to being in 6th year, right?”
She tried to sound bright, but Rosina was far more nervous than she would ever let on about 6th year. OWLs weren’t a breeze and NEWTs only get harder. Even worse, Rosina had no idea what she wanted to do after school. She had her meeting with Professor Sprout, but she lied her way through it. She still wasn’t sure what she wanted to do. All she knew was that she was good at school, but there aren’t always position to teach. After all, half the professors at Hogwarts have been there for years or until death do they part. She bit her lip for a moment, but tried to push the negativity away.
As the train rolled to a stop, Rosina stood. “I got your bag, Rosi,” Rodney said, a beaming smile on his face. He was a tall for his age, with bright red hair. Sometimes people asked him if he was a Weasley, but they were mainly joking. Weasley’s were easy to identify. Ginny was still here after all and she was certainly cooler than Rodney. Rodney was just, well, exactly what you expect a Hufflepuff to be. She smiled at him kindly though.
“Oh, thanks,” she said, casting Gwen a curious look. “I wonder what will be different this year or what the Sorting Hat will have to say. Everything is different,” she said, almost under her breath. “It can’t be all bad. It has to be good, but I wonder if Hogwarts even looks the same. There was,” she paused, “Just so much damage. I just wonder what McGonagall did with it all, you know?” She said to Gwen. For a moment, she felt a pang of sadness when looking at her friend. She used to be equally close to another Hufflepuff who died in the Battle. Sometimes looking at Gwen reminded her of all that.
“Stop running and put your wands away! The weather is bad enough. No need to be idiots,” she spat, at some second year Gryffindors running by.
Alaric stumbled behind these Gryffindors though their confidence and zeal made him want to vomit. He hated the idea of holding onto old animosity, but sometimes Gryffindors really did only care about themselves. After all, Harry Potter was a Gryffindor and Ron and Hermione. As if we all didn’t know. Yet, every Gryffindor acted like they were best friend with those three. That was what he hated most about Gryffindors. He passed by Gwen and Rosina, but cast his eyes quickly down as Rosina’s voice pierced the air. Her and Gwen both intimidated him so. They stuck together and didn’t care to cross house lines. They were smart, brilliant even, and strong willed women. Alaric wasn’t really the kind of guy to bother either of them, whether or not he could actually match them.
He just wanted to survive these next two years and it didn’t seem like getting on either of their bad sides was a good idea. He just wanted to take his classes, survive them, and get into NEWT classes. He wanted to be a Healer so badly that he wouldn’t let his own House get in the way. He certainly wouldn’t get in any trouble. He had too much on the line. He had too many people expecting him to go sour. In truth, he was lonely. He looked up to Draco for a long time. He was gone now and had made mistakes. Alaric felt ostracized now by those in school. Most of his friends did not return. He was stuck between being evil and being good; even he did not know where he stood. So, instead, he looked down and moved forward off the train.
December 11th, 2017 at 03:50am