The Hufflepuff Girl

Chapter 9

I was woken by soft sunlight streaming in through the window above my head and a pounding on our door. Collectively we all groaned as Clara's voice came drifting through the wood. "Rise and shine, my sleeping beauties!" I could assume she was smiling. "You have a long day ahead of you!" I heard her repeat the message to the girls one room over as I crawled out of my bed. I was the first one up, I saw; all the other girls stayed tucked tightly under their covers. With a roll of my eyes and a raspy call of, "get up" I made my way into the bathroom to do what I needed to be done. When I came back out into the room, only the other girl whose name I didn't remember, it looked like, had stirred. I grabbed one of my many uniforms from my drawer and placed them on the bed beside my pillow, where Beast was slowly waking. He yawned and stretched and pawed at the pillow, eyes blinking open. With a small smile I stripped of myself of my pajamas and pulled on my button up - careful to button each and every button, but the top three, of course - and next tugged on my skirt. The girls began moving after I tucked the ends of my shirt neatly into the hem of my skirt. Anna grinned tiredly at me as she passed by, I managed a smile back before tugging one of the Hufflepuff sweater vests over my head.

"Any of you girls ready?" Came Clara's vice, accompanied by another knock at the door.

"Almost," I answered, pulling on my socks.

"Good," I could almost hear her smile, "meet me in the common room when you all are ready."

I shouted a minute response of, "okay," as I moved to grab my ballet flats from beside my dresser. Janet stirred, tossing her heavy covers off of herself with a deep groan, and made herself sit upright, glassy eyes taking in the room. "Morning," she said lowly. I gave a quiet nod, grabbing my robe and wand, before slipping out of the room.

It was nearly as silent as death on the staircase, I noticed, making my way down towards the sounds of crackling fire and shy laughter. The warmth of the fire surrounded me as I made my way into the common area, where, already, some students were sat. Clara and Thomas were surrounded by very few first years - many of them whom I did not recognize - all smiling brightly. I took a place on the floor at the back of the group, ducking my head to avoid notice while I pulled on my robe. It was much too long to be comfortable for me, pooling at my waist, the sleeves running down past the ends of my finger tips, but I made do; curling in on myself, wrapping the excess fabric around my knees. Clara was talking animatedly, and from what little I caught, she telling those who were listening stories of her very first year.

Minutes ticked by and, yet, no more joined us. Somewhere between meeting Snape - the Potions professor here at Hogwarts - and having a run in with a nasty Slytherin prefect, Clara paused in her story telling, looking quite disgruntled as she turned her gaze to the stairs.

"You take them on down," she said with a huff. "I'm going to go see what's taking everyone so long."

"As you wish," said Thomas with an extravagant bow and cheeky grin, both of which sent Clara's face up in flames. "C'mon." He nodded his head towards us and then in the direction of the staircase, marching off leaving us all to scramble to catch up to him.

As I had when joining the group, I took a place at the back of the small group - about a group of only six students. The stone staircase lead us back up to the large, wooden Hobbit-like door, which swung effortlessly open as we approached. The dim light in the hall made it quite hard to see as we continued on, walking by a stray Gryffindor or Ravenclaw every so often. "So, began Thomas suddenly, "did everyone find their rooms to their liking?" Three of the boys - Marcus and David, were the names of two, if I remembered correctly - spouted off outrageous story after story about their getting settled the previous evening. "Really?" Said Thomas with a smile. "No way!" His responses were encouraging and kind, despite the obvious fakeness of what he was being told.