Strange Beginnings

Chapter IV

"- along with a swish and flick wand motion." 

Professor Flitwick was instructing the class on the spell of the day, the levitation spell. Y/N had one hand propping up their head by their temples as they listened (or at least tried to), but when he had repeated the same instructions five times already they were quickly loosing interest. Just as their eyelids started to waver in staying open, the professor gave the students the go ahead and try out the spell on the feather placed in front of them. The class repeated the spell at their own paces, wands flicking around with some interesting technics. 

Maybe I should have listened better, Y/N thought to themselves. They kept repeating the incantation with the supposed hand movement but their feather only gave them a slight ruffle which might have actually been caused by their huff of air. Y/N looked around to see if anyone else had gotten their feather to lift from the table. Their eye's widened with amusement when they watched the youngest Weasley boy practically beating the air around the feather. Perhaps he was trying to scare the feather into flying. Granger sitting next to him reached out to stop his erratic waving and began correcting his approach. Ron was obviously bothered by her bossy tone and challenged her to do it (a mistake on his part, unless he wanted to have proven to him she was in fact more capable).

With a graceful turnabout with her wrist and proper annunciation of the spell her feather began to rise. Flitwick called attention to the witch and praise her for accomplishing the spell with such ease. Y/N signed, of course Hermione would get it on the first try. Seamus Finnigan a couple students down from Ms. Granger tried again, recklessly flicking his wand around and saying words that sounded close to the correct spell. His feather perhaps couldn't take it anymore and exploded with a whoosh of bright light and a heat wave that barely hit Y/N from across the way. They tried desperately to contain their laughter.

As the students left the charms classroom heading to lunch, Y/N walked in between a group of Gryffindor boys and a some Ravenclaws, trying to avoid Malfoy and his constant blabber of things he'd tell his father to get a teacher fired. The boys walking walking a couple steps ahead of Y/N were all laughing at something Weasley had said.

"She's a nightmare! No wonder she hasn't got any friends." he concluded.

Hermione had heard everything he said and brushed past him, briskly walking away so they wouldn't see her start to cry. Y/N had their own quarrel with the frizzy haired witch and found some of her characteristics annoying but that didn't excuse Ronald's behavior in their mind. If Y/N hated something more than people judging others it would be bullying based of judgments. The group of boys previously laughing stopped in the court yard, either feeling ashamed of their behavior or just regretting being caught by the person they were talking about. Y/N walked past Ronald on his right.

"You know Weasley, just because you couldn't get the spell right doesn't mean you should put her down for succeeding at it." Y/N chided.

He gave Y/N a mocking face, already feeling bad about what had happened and Y/N telling him off didn't help with that. They walked off before Ron could come up with a comment back, not really wanting to fight him, just making him rethink his actions. 

~~~

Malfoy was going on about something Y/N didn't care to even try and listen to. But it was hard to think to themselves when his snobby voice made sure to project loud enough for everyone to hear, regardless if they wished to or not. The students were feasting on a meal dominated with sweets, cakes, and candies of every kind. Carved pumpkins lit the hall from the candles inside, there must have been a thousand or more. Who would even have the time to carve all those big orange squashes. Y/N stuffed their face with carrot cake and pumpkin juice, enjoying the luxury that the platter before them seemed to never run out.