Broken People--A Hufflepuff Story

Chapter IX

             "Dear me, it looks like we've bumped into little 'Not-worthy' here. I wonder, what's she doing at Hogwarts?" Elyssa asked her friends, who tittered like the birds in Oklahoma often did when they flocked together. 

         Anna smirked at this comparison, but she regretted it the instant it graced her lips. She was shoved to the floor, right outside the bathroom (they called it something else here, what was it?) and the girls walked away, laughing. Anna pushed herself off of the cold tile floor and dusted her self free of lint and dust. She pushed her hair out of her face, and started to enter the bathroom, when Elena cam running up. 

                   "Hey, are you ok? Did you trip?" Anna glanced behind her. Apparently Elena hadn't seen Elyssa and her friends just then. 

          "Er....y-yeah. I..." She though about what she would say. She didn't want Elena to get upset with Elyssa or make a scene, so maybe it was best she just go along with Elena's theory. 

              "Yeah. I...I tripped."

          "Eesh. Be more careful next time, ok? And don't you know you're not to go to the girls bathroom alone? There's a rumor--"

                 Elena was promptly interrupted by Moaning Myrtle, who--well, moaned. 

  "Yeah. I-I...I heard," offered Anna with a sheepish smile.

           After they finished up, Elena walked with her to potions. Anna listened while she chatted, which was fine with her. She didn't have much to say anyway, and Elena obviously did. They moved to their desks in Potions class quietly, with a parting smile. Professor Camsbee was standing in front of a large caldron in front of her desk, and as the class began to fill, she smiled at her students. 

      Anna only got a glimpse of the contents of the caldron, but it looked sort of...red. A few of the kids began to prep their caldrons, and Anna did the same. But, out of the corner of her eye, she noticed a boy sitting among his friends, looking angry and upset and...well, humiliated. The boys around him were all from Gryffindor, and they looked a bit sheepish. She wondered what had happened to make the boy so upset. 

            The potion for that day was fairly easy. It was an antidote for a poison made by Trixidon--a beautiful plant that released a toxic fume once something--or someone--came too near. Anna smiled. Being good at Herbology made a few things in Potions a lot easier. 

      She crushed and snipped and sliced and pinched each ingredient, some of them unlike any she had ever seen before. But some of them were so familiar they seemed out of place in this insane class. Cinnamon, for instance. She almost laughed aloud when she read it on the list. She knew it's properties were valuable for many things, but for an antidote she wouldn't have guessed. 

           As she began grinding something (I would rather not say what it was exactly, it's really disgusting), a clatter near the back startled the pestle, a grinding tool, out of her hand. She bent down to pick it up, glancing towards the noise. The boy who had looked upset earlier now looked furious, and glared at his caldron with so much hate, it made Anna shudder. 

            Anna glanced between him and Professor Camsbee, who as watching the whole ordeal keenly out of the corner of her eye. Her teacher, however, noticed her watching, and lifted a brow. embarrassed, Anna ducked her head and tried to pay attention to her own caldron. It's contents were a burgundy color, and Anna knew she was close to perfection. 

      But her mind was on the boy in the back. 

               "Mr. Isaacs. Is something the matter? What has your cauldron done to make you so angry at it?" Professor Camsbee finally strode towards the back of the class in her confident and assuring way, and Anna's attention was immediately stolen from her potion once more. 

         The boy grumbled something, to which Camsbee grumbled something right back, so Anna didn't hear. But she watched as her teacher showed the boy what he did wrong, and went back to her desk at the front of the class. Anna watched her teachers every move, and when the professor gave Anna a sharp look, she hurried to finish her potion.  

            That boy....who was he?

        There was no time to wonder, for at that moment his cauldron exploded.