The Years of Blue [2]

Chapter 38: Beauxbatons takes on Hogwarts

* For the video, start at 1:55 for Beauxbatons*

I was woken with a jolt early Friday morning by the ringing bell that hung over our door way. After quickly putting our feet on the carpets below our beds, the ringing bell stopped abruptly letting Marie and I enjoy the heavenly silence of the morning. Then it hit us.

Today was the day.

"Crap!"

The pair of us jumped off the beds in a hurry and prepped ourselves for the trip. Apart from having an obnoxious walk in when my school enters Hogwarts, all Beuxbatons students were to also wear our silk uniforms with no imperfections. That means perfect pleats, no holes in the stockings, our shoes were to be buffed up until they shown, and our hair was to be done up with a curl on one or both cheeks.

"Are you putting on red?" Marie asked, hastily turning to me in her mirror with her lipstick in hand.

"Better safe than sorry," I said before returning behind the dressing board set up across a portion of the room. I finished lacing up my heels appropriately just in time for Marie to get changed, so we switched positions, with me at the dressing table and Marie behind the dressing board.

"I have dark circles under my eyes. What should I do?" I asked, moving my eyes closer to the mirror in curiosity.

"Baby powder. I have some in the top drawer." I hastily looked for it and applied it before finishing up with my hair and then my lipstick with a satisfying pop.

Lastly was our hats which we each did to each other, bending over the mirror to make sure the tilt in our hats were perfect.

"We look good," I said happily, surveying ourselves in the mirror, but it didn't last as Marie only had to glance up at the clock where it read 7:40 am to get us running again to the dining hall for breakfast.

There we found Ana half asleep by her French toast, Rosalie eating a croissant ravenously, Mila slowly spreading jam on her toast and the palm of her hand without even the slightest notice and Gisele, eating an omelet calmly with puffed red eyes from crying. It wasn't until I sat down that I noticed Jacqueline present, in her silk uniform to match, eating a muffin happily.

"Took you long enough to arrive," she said chipper as ever as we sat down to the materialized food in front of us. I was given a fruit salad with a cup of coffee to match. I automatically looked to Marie's plate to see she had gotten two pieces of dark wheat spread in butter, cheese and a sunny side egg on top. Damn, I wanted that.

"I'm surprised you're up this early, Jacqueline," Marie said back, unaware of my plate jealous. "Willing to skip your beauty sleep to eat with us one last time?"

"Oh stop Marie! You're going to make me cry again," Gisele said emotionally to both of our surprise. The rest of the table was not fazed.

"Gisele's a bit upset," Rosalie explained as she took up her fork and started on Mila's untouched French toast. Rosalie's croissant had been inhaled.

"Here, Mila stop," Jacqueline said motherly, as she took the overly drenched toast in blueberry jam out of our friend's similarly slathered hand and wiped it with her napkin.

"Oh wow, thanks," Mila mumbled sleepily, before taking the toast and shoving it in her mouth, leaving blueberry jam all over her cheeks. Jacqueline chuckled before turning to see me starring.

"Eat your fruit, American. I hear Hogwarts doesn't give us such nice selections in food."

"Actually that's not true at all. Much the opposite."

"As long as they make coffee, I could care less about their level of culinary skills," Ana said ruefully, her face still planted on the table.

At 8 am we were found running full speed through the castle and to the unicorn drawn carts at the entrance where students were still rushing to jump in. Jacqueline pushed us on and then hopped in herself, saying she was going to wave us off at the station. This caused Gisele to weep bitterly about how unfair all this was but Jacqueline did not seem in the least bit bothered which was very odd.