TMD: Sophie's Hogwarts Years

Chapter 5: The Courtyard

As Sophie and Elizabeth walk back down the spiral staircase, they notice a group of students gathering in one of the courtyards. Sophie recognises a few as first-years and assumes they've all met up to hand all their sweets to Hufflepuff for winning the scavenger hunt. After a quick stop at their dormitory to collect their own sweets, the two girls make their way to the courtyard by the West Tower.

"Where have you been?" Mary asks when they enter. "We've been waiting for ages."

"We were in the Owlery visiting Athena," Elizabeth explains.

"My owl," Sophie adds as Mary looks confused.

Okay." Mary shrugs.

"I looked for you in the common room, and Nancy said you weren't in your dormitory. We assumed you'd exchange your sweets later," Florian explains.

"We've got ours. We saw you from the West Tower and thought that's what we were doing." Elizabeth smiles, holding out her paper bags full of sweets.

"I'll take that, thank you," Freya Quinn, a Hufflepuff girl, says, taking the bag. "Have you got yours?" She asks Sophie.

"Yeah, sorry, it's not much." Sophie hands over her bag of peppermint quills she had bought with the money Gaius had given her on the Hogwarts Express.

"It's better than nothing like some of the Gryffindors," Freya side-eyes Ruby Lander, who is talking with the rest of her Gryffindor mates. "I don't trust them," she mutters, walking back over to the bench where a group of Hufflepuffs sorted the large pile of sweets into categories to ensure each Hufflepuff student received an equal amount.

Sophie turns to her Ravenclaw friends and notices Gaius is watching the Hufflepuffs intensely, clearly annoyed at having lost his stash of sweets.

"Hey, Gaius," Sophie calls, beckoning him over. "It's done now; we have to move on."

Gaius' shoulders slump as he looks forlornly at the ground. "I don't know how I will get any more sweets. It was hard enough bribing you to get me that stash."

"I'd didn't really put up an argument." Sophie smiles, pitying Gaius. Everything has changed for him in the past twenty-four hours, and now one of his comforts has been taken away. "Leave it with me; I'll get you some more," she promises.

Gaius initially looks confused. However, not wanting to look a gift hippogriff in the mouth, he quickly hugs her and steps away before she can change her mind.

"So, where are the rest of Slytherin and Gryffindor?" Elizabeth asks, glancing around the courtyard to find only about five from each house.

"There wasn't much point in all of us coming here." Ruby shrugs.

"Yeah, we only came to make sure everyone else held up their end of the agreement," Leslie Artz states.

"Same here," Beatrice agrees.

"And if we're done here, we might as well go," Mary adds. "I've got better things to do than watching the Hufflepuffs devour our sweets supply.

Most of the students begin to leave until Elizabeth calls out, "Wait!" They pause in their departure, turning back curiously.

"Don't you want to hang out for a bit?" Elizabeth asks, hopefulness clear across her face.

Mary laughs, "Why would we want to 'hang out'?"

"This morning was fun." Elizabeth shrugs. "I thought we could get to know each other properly. We won't have much chance when classes start."

"What?" Mary snicker. "You want to be friends?" She says mockingly with a baby voice.