Hufflepuff, Quidditch, & Queer

Chapter 1: Bittersweet Beginings

Walking through the platform was what Minerva thought that swimming upstream would feel like. Everything working against you, but you still pushed through the struggle of the swim for the destination.

It was the last year that she would be making her way to the station of 9 3/4. It was be the last year that she and her friends would eat chocolate frogs off the trolley and draw doodles in the condensation on the window. It was a bittersweet feeling, knowing that after that year she wouldn't have to deal with school, but she also would never indulge in the simple pleasantries.

She would miss it, despite the issues and the anxiety that came with school. She knew she would miss it and the people she learned to love because of it. She hated it, but loved it all the same.

"Minnie!" Poppy called through the sounds of shuffling feet and blaring trains. Minerva turned to wave as her Slytherin best friend pushed her way through the crowd.

"How've you been?" Minerva asked as she hugged Poppy. "I've missed you all summer! Did you get any of my texts?"

"I kinda dropped my phone in the lake this summer and haven't been able to get a new one. My parents won't buy it because of 'how much it costs to raise a witch.'" Miverva said. They watched as first years ran through the wall and stifled a laugh. They walked through with no trouble.

"You're an idiot, you know that? How can you drop your phone in a lake?"

"Hey, at least I didn't drop it in a dirty mop bucket!"

Last summer, Poppy was working for a place where she'd clean tables and mop floors. One lucky day she had dropped her phone in one of the buckets she used just minutes before. When Minerva heard, she couldn't stop laughing for days.

"Will you ever let that go?" Poppy rolled her eyes. "Did you parents just drop you off this year?"

"There were lots of tears in the parking lot, but I convinced them to let me walk here on my own this time. They can be so... clingy."

"What are they going to do when you graduate?"

"Make me move with them forever," Minerva laughed, but the joke made her stomach drop. She loved her parents and little brother, but the thought of living with them longer than she needed made her stomach tighten. There were just something that they didn't see eye to eye on.

"Have you seem Tomas?" Poppy stood on her tippy toes due to her incredible shortness to search for her boyfriend. "He said he'd meet us here..."

"Maybe he's already boarded and is saving us a seat." Minerva suggested, grabbing Poppy's hand and practically dragged her towards the Hogwarts Express.

"Poppy!"

Minerva internally groaned as a head of black hair appeared from what seemed like no where. Tomas wasn't a bad guy, per say, but she didn't like that for the past year and five months she has to share the person she told everything. But the fact that she was two inches taller than him made up for the fact. The little things, she reminder herself.

"Babe!" Poppy threw her arms around him, nearly hitting Minerva in the process. "I thought you left already."

"Nope, just waiting for you. Shall we board?" They pulled apart and interlocked hands. Together the three of them pushed through remaining parents, greeted the man taking tickets, and took a seat.

"What'd you do this summer?" Minerva asked Tom. He dove into a conversation about an apprenticeship he had at the Ministry. She tried to listen, but after he started talking about making coffee runs, Minerva checked out.