Pragma // s.b.

3

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When I woke the next day, Skye was sitting at the foot of her bed, already fully dressed. "You're up early", I rubbed the sleep out of my eyes, stretching. "I guess I was just excited for the day", she grinned and shrugged, "Want me to braid your hair?". "Sure, thanks", I smiled and moved towards her. We chatted as her nimble hands made their way though my long hair, forming it into two french braids that fell down my back. We decided to go to breakfast when there was no sign of any of the other girls waking.

    As we moved past the kitchens, sounds of pots and pans clanging and sizzling bacon drifted out. "What's our schedule for today", Skye said, pushing her glasses up her cute upturned nose. I dug around in my bag until I located the already crumpled piece of parchment that had the Hufflepuff 6th year schedule written on it. "First is Herbology with the Slytherins, then Potions and DADA with the Gryffindors", I read off. Skye snorted as we pushed open the doors to the Great Hall.

    "What?", I asked, looking at her as we slid into our usual spot at the Hufflepuff table. "You realize what that means?", she shook her head, spooning oatmeal into her bowl. "No?", I said, completely lost. "It means", she began slowly, "You get to spend two classes in a row with your favorite people at this school". I stopped piling fruit onto my plate and let out a load groan. How could I have forgotten? Potter, Lupin, Pettigrew, and Black were 6th years too, and apparently shared two of my classes today.

I lowered my head onto the table and began to slowly beat it against the wood. "I'm not even gonna ask", I heard Liv say as she threw her bag down and began loudly slurping tea.

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I was so annoyed at the fact that I was annoyed, that I was becoming even more annoyed. It was absolutely unfair that I was forced to share my best and favorite subject, Potions, and my worst and least favorite subject, DADA, with the stupid self named "Marauders". Seriously, who gives themselves a name? "Cheer up, love", Maggie said, bumping my arm as we decended in a pack of yellow and black down into the dungeons.

Olivia and Skye trailed behind us, chatting with a stout boy with a round face from our house named Lewis. Amber and Tanner held hands, oblivious to anyone else. "I'm trying very hard to be positive", I sighed as we rounded the corner and the Gryffindors came into sight, gathered around the door of the dungeon. "Just ignore them", shrugged Maggie, "They don't deserve anymore of your time, Bri". I nodded and bit my lip. I wish I cared less about their shenanigans, but I felt a need to right their wrongs, to fix what they had broken.

"Oi! Our favorite Puff is here!", Sirius' loud voice rang out above the chatter. I exhaled sharply and turned away, doing all I could to avoid eye contact with anyone. I didn't bother to listen to anything else that came out of his obnoxious mouth, but apparently what he said was quite funny, as most of the Gryffindors burst into laughter. I rolled my eyes and turned my attention to the conversation between Skye, Olivia, Lewis, and now Maggie.

"It was awful", Lewis exhaled, "I understand why they made me get the job, but they're muggles. They don't understand that once you learn how to use magic, doing anything without it is so much harder". He sighed and shook his head. Lewis was a muggleborn, something that didn't matter one bit to any of us, but was the cause of some pretty harsh bullying from Slytherins. I, along with many other Hufflepuffs, had had to get him out of a few sticky situations in the past, but it didn't matter, we were all family and would do anything for each other.

The door to the Potions classroom swung open and our Professor, a squat man who was shorter than me, and that's saying something, gestured for us to enter. Olivia caught my eye and we started to move towards our usual seat when, "Not so fast everyone!", Professor Terence called. "Due to the high challenge and level of work I am expecting of you this year, you will be given assigned seats", he continued, "I will call out your names in reverse alphabetical order, file into the next open seat. I assume at this level of your education, you can handle that".

The class groaned in unison and he began to call out the names loudly, starting with Ella Abraham. I tried to think through the names of those in the class, but I couldn't figure out who I would be by. "Layla Cannon", Professor Terence called, then, "Briony Carter". I sighed, relieved. I didn't know Layla personally, she was a muscular Gryffindor girl with copious amounts of frizzy hair, but she seemed nice enough. However, when I reached the opposite side of the classroom, I realized it was my turn to start a new desk. Professor Terence glanced down at the sheet of parchment with our names listed on it and sharply called out the next one, "Sirius Black".

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