Taste of Youth

I was forced to miss lunch as well as meet the rest of the group that would be around , woe is me. I spent a good amount of the day writing a eight foot essay for Cormack in the dorm I shared with Lily. Three more girls who used to be Lily’s dorm mates came to greet me and the five of them spent at least two hours catching up in the small room. They included me as best they could but one of the girls pointedly turned the conversation away whenever Alice asked me a question. It wasn’t until I was over half done with my essay that Alice gave up and came to sit with me on my side of the dorm.

“Hey.” She grinned tossing herself on my bed like it was the most natural thing ever, “Lily told me you worked in Diagon Alley. Did you like the jobs?”

“Yeah, the people I worked with were pretty amazing. At Flourish, I got to spend a lot of time reading. I liked the flying section.”

“Have you ever flown?”

I shook my head, “My mom is a Muggle. She…doesn’t like magic. I never even went to school, I got a letter for Salem’s Academy and I never went. I spent the last month going through five years worth of school.”

Alice snapped up from her lounging position, “Are you joking?”

“Nope.”

“That’s terrible!” She threw her arms up and flopped back again, “Is she still in America?”

“Yeah, her and my sister.”

Alice stared at me her brown eyes knowing, “They don’t know your here do they.”

I shook my head and put down my quill, “I don’t think they’d care even if they did.”

“Ah, we seem to get a lot of those in Hogwarts. It’s alright though, most people don’t bug too much here. Unless your dealing with those nasty Slytherin’s they’re right git’s that lot.” She smiled a little wider and pushed up to peer at my parchment, “What’s this?”

“Essay for Cormack. I can’t use my wand arm so this is is vengeance.”

“Don’t you write with that hand?”

“I’m ambidextrous, not that he has to know that.” I joked poking her.

She laughed and started messing with my essay as I stacked up my research books. Alice told me about a guy named Frank Longbottom, her Hufflepuff boyfriend. From what she told me, he sounded like an amazing guy as well as the kind of boyfriend most girls would kill for. She was smitten that much I could tell. She told me about the incident over summer when he’d come over to meet the family, the family dog decided to use him as a humping post. We were laughing, sharing stories becoming friends, when the girl who didn’t like me came over if I remembered right her name was Gigi Pritchard.

“Alice we’re leaving. Unpacking you know.” She glanced at me and sniffed before turning away.

“She doesn’t like people prettier than her so don’t let that bother you.” Alice whispered into my ear, “Especially since Sirius is around already get too close and she might bite.”

I stiffled a laughed and Alice grinned waving as she and the other girls headed for their dorms. Lily flopped back on my bed like Alice had and let out a groan.

“I know I shouldn’t say this since their my friends but I am so glad their gone. Gigi was trying to pry information about you out of me.” She said watching me put my essay back in order.

“Mmm Alice figured as much.”

Lily grinned, “Alice is great isn’t she? She has a little habit of being quite awkward when people first meet her so they don’t try to get to know her after that. Think that the sorting hat made a mistake when they sorted her here.”

“Do you?”

“Not at all! She’s one of the greatest people I know, she’s really loyal to her friends. Near got expelled trying to beat up Snape when he…when he called me a-a-”

“It’s okay, Lily. I think I know what your trying to say. I had a woman come in when I worked at the beauty shop in Diagon Alley. Threatened the manager for having her daughter served by filth. I didn’t really understand then because I’d only been part of the wizarding world for maybe a month but the next day I was fired and told not to come back.” I lifted both my hands up and flopped down next to her, “People have prejudices, Lily. They’re taught it mostly, they learn it. It’s not their fault until they put it into action like the lady did.”

“That’s terrible.” She sighed.

“Snape was your friend, that’s worse.”

“Yeah, yeah it is.” Lily sat up and looked at me, “Are you going down for dinner? Seems like people make you uncomfortable but Alice and I can back you up if you want to run for it.”

“I have the feeling that you’ll drag me if I say no.”

Lily laughed, “You know me so well after the first day. Come on you, time to face the music.”