Sanguine - (adj.) eagerly optimistic, especially under terrible circumstances.
Evangeline was a pureblood witch, her parents' perfect porcelain doll. Evangeline lived a sheltered, predictable life, and she didn't mind it. She didn't know there was a...
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"I did it," Alice slammed her Transfiguration text on the table in front of Pandora. "I made the team. I'm the bloody keeper."
"Way to go!" Pandora cheered, "We knew you could do it. Right?"
The two girls looked at Evangeline, who had entered the Transfiguration classroom just behind Alice. She nodded politely. "Bloody's right. What happened to your head?"
"Just a bludger," Alice was unfazed. Madam Pomfrey had bandaged her up and sent her off with a warning about wearing a helmet, even during practice. Alice was unlikely to follow that advice, "You're not listening. I did it!" She slammed both her hands on the table in her excitement.
"Miss Fortescue, please refrain from abusing our tables. We have a limited number of them," Professor McGonagall chastised her from the front of the room. Evangeline giggled at this, before the witch said something that stopped her laughter in her throat, "Miss de Santis, I've been meaning to ask you to talk to me after class."
"Ooh," said Alice, taking her seat beside Pandora, "What did you do now?"
"Nothing," said Evangeline. As far as she was concerned, she hadn't broken any rules. Unless McGonagall had somehow found out about her stunt in the restricted section. But that was impossible, how would she find out, unless...
Evangeline turned to look at the back of the room, where Regulus Black was sat next to Rosier, laughing about something asinine, she was sure. The prat had ratted her out, hadn't he? Evangeline felt herself begin to steam.
"Hey de Santis," called a voice to her left. Evangeline turned to see Wilkes smiling coyly at her. She waved meagerly. He gestured to the empty space beside him. "Come have a seat."
Evangeline didn't miss Alice's look of annoyance as she crossed to sit beside him, but if Alice and Pandora hadn't insisted on sitting together, she wouldn't be forced to sit with Wilkes. She only hoped he had gotten over his newfound fascination with the fairer sex over the summer. She wasn't in the mood for it. Unfortunately, it seemed she would have no such luck.
"Santis, like saint? Is that why you look like an angel?" asked Wilkes.
Evangeline, whose religious upbringing had taught her there were many key differences between the two, refrained from correcting him as she settled into her seat beside him. "Good to see you too, Wilkes."
The class went from bad to worse as McGonagall made it devastatingly clear that she was unwilling to waste any time covering material from the previous term. Anything they had not committed to memory over the summer was not going to be touched on again, and was likely to come up on their OWLs at the end of the year. Evangeline felt like she was sinking slowly into quicksand, all the incantations she failed to remember suffocating her slowly.
By the end of class, she was the last person trying—and failing miserably—to turn a salamander into a rabbit. She couldn't get the motions correct, and her hand had begun cramping, making it even harder.
