Dorm 5108 | Mattheo Riddle

three.

It wasn't a challenge. I definitely did not challenge Mattheo to be my friend. In fact, I'm sure it was the exact opposite of what I was telling him. I told him not to do it. I distinctly remember saying that he should give up on me because everyone does. In what way was that a challenge? I am not a problem that needs to be solved. I am not a puzzle that needs to be put together.

I'm not any of the things listed.

I'm trying to get by in life, and I want to get by under the radar. I want to live as a shadow that no one gives the slightest attention to. I don't need fixing. I don't need change.

I'm set in my ways; it's too late for adjustment.

"Rhiannon–are you alright?" A hand waves frantically in front of my face and I avert my attention back to the first year in front of me.

"I am. Why do you ask?"

"You've got that look on your face."

Smiling from ear to ear, I didn't think anyone could see my expression under all of my restless hair. "And what look is that, Alicia?"

"It's the same look my mother gets when she's thinking too hard. And when she thinks too hard she kind of stares off and doesn't hear me talking."

"Was I doing that?"

Alicia nods, her curly brown hair bouncing with each bob.

"Alright, what were you saying before I drifted off?" I ask and affix all of my attention on the younger student.

"Justin,"

"You and Justin again?"

She agrees, her head moving up and down. I've been tutoring a few first years for around 2 weeks now–most of Alicia's problems are with Justin and their tenuous arguments. "I don't understand boys, Rhiannon."

"Does anyone?"

She hides her laughter behind her palms as if I shouted a secret only girls could relate to. "Sometimes he's nice, but then other times he's super mean."

"When is he nice?"

"When he helps me with my potions homework and when he sits next to me in the Great Hall."

"And how about when he's being mean?"

"When I want to read a book, he won't leave me alone. He starts to make fun of me–saying my hair is too curly and that I'm short like a Cornish Pixie!"

"You're right, that's not very nice of him. What do you say back?"

"Well–I called him a Blast-Ended Screwt!"

I snort and immediately apologise for taking light of her squabble with a fellow classmate. Their childhood contrasts dramatically in comparison to mine. It's practically black and white. If my troubles were only attributed to light teasing and magical creature labels–I would gladly choose to live my innocent youth again. But it was nothing trivial like that, it was much worse. It was much more damaging than anyone can fathom putting a child through once. "That's not nice either, Alicia."

Her lips pull together into a tiny pout. "I know,"

"What do you normally do when you're not getting along?"

Alicia pulls her bag from the chair next to her and places it on the table, grabbing a mason jar that is filled with thin strips of parchment. She places it in front of me. "The Jar of Friendship."

The Jar of Friendship. It's not my first encounter with it, it's commonly used with first and second year wizards around the globe–and it's not exactly the name I would give it either. The Jar of Friendly Lies is more suited for this method. Whenever students aren't behaving with each other, the professor gives them a Jar of Friendship. Each student has to write something nice about the other person and put it into the jar. It's purpose is to fixate the child's brain on the good characteristics and not the bad parts of the other student. It's to show that even if there are some bad traits in a person, there is also good, and the good over shines the bad.