Nice to meet you! ((Sita))

[Sophia Hallington H7]

Sophia woke up late on that Saturday morning, having been up late the previous night, trying to finish a long, tedious essay for History of Magic, that should have been finished for the previous lesson, yet she had completely forgotten about it. She hoped to hant it in to Professor Binns later that day, but for now, she just wanted to relax.

She pulled on her favourite, plain-yellow t-shirt, which she had originally bought to show Hufflepuff Pride when she was in 1st year. Hence it was pretty small, yet comfortable. She also put on her contrasting, fairly baggy jeans, with a silver belt, and didn't bother with any make up or anything. She quickly brushed her hair, and went down to the common room.

She hoped to sit down and get some reading done, as she had been so busy recently, she hadn't read much in over a week. However, when she got down there, she noticed that there was only one seat left, and that was near a young, Indian-looking 1st year student, who seemed to be looking pretty lonely.

"errm, excuse me. May I sit here" Sophia asked, timidly, waiting for a reply.

[Sita Mehadi H7]

Homework time was not Sita’s favourite time of day. In fact, it was positively one of the worst times possible. Whatever you were doing, it was not the most fun way to be spending your time. Some subjects were just more intolerable than others. Muggle Studies was usually a doddle for Sita, coming as she did from a background where she not only lived with the people and their devices every day but also had them enthusiastically explained to her. Herbology was something she approached with confidence, and was enjoying too. Transfiguration… a bit hard. Charms… al right but the wand movement could be a bit tricky; DADA… not bad she supposed. Astronomy was all right too; in fact it could even be quite fun. Probably something to do with the fact they got to do it at night, outside, when it was dark. Something not normally allowed.

But what of all these other subjects? History of Magic – so dull! Who wanted to know about goblin wars of centuries past anyway? She had fallen asleep in those lessons before, even when she’d been perfectly well rested. Professor Binns’ ultimate ambition must be to send them all into a stupor so he could have some peace and quiet for once - the classes usually had a backdrop of endless unchecked chattering as students took it as a chance to arrange their all-important social lives. Then there was Potions… it involved plants but was definitely not fun. That all boiled down to the teacher. Sita grinned as she remembered Ingy's Halloween costume. One of Ingrid's many qualities was her ingenuity. Who else would think of going as Professor Snape? Who else could look so scary?

Unfortunately it was homework time now for Sita. She wasn’t sure where Ingy was at the moment, and she had to get this work done, much as she loathed to spend her time doing it rather than more fun things. The dreaded subject was, in this case, Potions. The teacher seemed to delight in setting them impossible essays. Sita didn’t delight in doing them. She stared glumly at her pink quill, and then at her pristinely kept Potions book. She always kept her books nice – although that was hard with her Potions book, when you considered all those potions that went wrong spitting everywhere and all over it if she wasn’t careful, burning holes through the pages and whatnot. She wasn’t actually too bad at it, she didn’t think – not if you compared that subject with something like Charms. It bore more relation to Herbology, so she was better at it. But right now she was stuck, and rather wishing Ingrid or one of her other friends was here to help. Ingrid usually knew the answers to things. She was smart.

Her thoughts were suddenly interrupted by someone asking whether they could sit with her. Sita was surprised when she looked up to see someone who looked at least a year older than her. Not too tall, mind you, but that didn’t matter – usually older students wouldn’t bother much with asking, let alone with such a lack of confidence as to her answer being favourable. There seemed to be a general consensus amongst the older students that first years – “Ickle wee firsties”, as Peeves would have it – were the underdogs of the school. It seemed in living memory it had always been so, and Sita supposed it would continue to go on that way. She was content to leave it as it was – she only had half a year of her first year at school left anyway. But nevertheless, she was surprised to be addressed so by an older student. Though it wouldn’t have been anyone from her own dormitory – they must all know by now her answers wouldn’t fail to be welcoming. She thrived in company.
“Sure, I don’t see any reason why not!” she replied jovially, giving the girl a friendly smile. She looked down at the notes she’d made on the homework essay she was supposed to be writing and added, “Even better if you can tell me what colour a Boil-Inducing Potion should go when you add horned slugs? And what’ll happen if you add too many? Something nasty I should think, considering we have to write about it.”

[Sophia Hallington H7]

"Thanks" Sophia said, greatfully. The girl seemed to be really nice already, and seemed to be shocked that someone, especially an older girl, had asked to sit with her.

"Errm...I can't remember a thing from Firist year Potions at all, certainly nothing about slugs...maybe the solution would go purple? And if you put too many in, then the extra ones won't die, and just get annoyed, and jump out? I don't know..."
Potions wasn't Sophia's best subject, in fact, it was much the opposite-Snape hated her, like all the other Hufflepuffs. And Ravenclaws-basically anyone not in Slytherin!
She loved Herbology though, although some of the creatures, like the Mandrakes, were annoying and difficult to handle.
She was fasinated by the dark arts, although she found them scary, and would rarely use them herself.
She found History of Magic boring, like most people, and enjoyed Care of Magical Creatures, although she had been badly injured by a griffin once, not too long ago.
Charms, she found middling, and loved all the swishing and flicking involved, though sometimes the results were disastrous-once, she ended up sending a vase all the way across the room, when she was just doing Wingardium Leviosa.
Transfiguration was similar to charms, in the middling-but-sometimes-disastrous department. She found that the teacher was very encouraging, though she felt like she would be more enclouraged had she been in Gryffindor, as McGonagal was head of Gryffindor.
Astronomy, she liked, but found it boring sometimes, as she was often tired, as it was the middle of the night. Looking at the stars was interesting, but drawing the contellation maps was the boring, tedious part.
She had decided to take Arithmancy over Divination, as she thought that divination sounded very strange, and she didn't like all this fortune-telling stuff. However, she loved Arithmancy, as she loved numbers, and was fascinated by the things that they could do.
She didn't take Muggle Studies, as her parents thought that there was no point as she had been brought up as a muggle, though it would have been interesting to find out how magical people saw muggles, though she didn't regret this, as she would be easily annoyed with the lack of knowldge of the muggle world.
Ancient Runes she didn't fancy, so didn't take-she found that it sounded fairly difficult, and she was sure it clashed with another lesson, so she couldn't take it anyway, without a time-turner.

Sophia realised that her mind had been wandering..."Anyway, sorry I couldn't help you with the Potions homework-any other homework you're stuck on, that I may be able to help with?"

[Sita Mehadi H7]

Sita wrote 'purple' in the gap she had left in her essay. She still had quite childish handwriting - scrupulously neat, rounded, all the letters equal. She liked to use different colours to do her homework, because it made the layout of things clear and furthermore provided welcome distraction in the form of getting to make things look pretty, but for her Potions essay she was using boring black ink, for the precise reason it was a Potions essay. No use wasting anything else on it. She was still writing with her pretty pink quill though. She'd seen it and liked it on her trip to Diagon Alley with Ingrid before the start of the year, and thanks to her having her father wrapped round her little finger, had acquired it soon afterwards. She looked happily at it now, topped as it was with a light pink butterfly with darker shades of pink in its wings that would glimmer every now and then, pink fluffy strands exploding out around it. The quill ended in a neatly trimmed point which now she dipped into her inkpot before poising it to start writing more sentences to fill up the required space.

"Any particular reason for its being purple?" she asked, the wings of the butterfly on her quill graduating through to a pretty magenta. "Personal whim, or some complicated Potions law I don't know about yet? And most likely will never understand?" She gazed with some interest at the pages of her book. The nice thing about potions was the beautiful shades they turned - if you got them right. The nasty thing was, of course, the teacher. And the odours the potions which had gone wrong tended to give off. Some of them made her feel properly ill. She was always glad to leave the dungeons. "Are slugs soluble, by the way?" she asked, grinning and making eye contact with the girl as she could see the humour of having a conversation about molluscs. "Surely the slime... oh." she said, breaking off from what she had been about to say. Ingy was well used to not letting Sita's 'ew' thoughts worry her - she must be, the number of times Sita had expressed them; she was not used to having to keep thoughts to herself - but perhaps it wouldn't be too polite to go giving this girl gross thoughts. Then again...

"The slugs are still alive when you put them in the potion?" Sita asked, wide-eyed, genuinely astonished and dismayed. "But... I had to quarter mine this week before I put them in! You're saying they're... oh dear. It's just as well there's a while to go to lunch." Sita grinned again, just slightly. She would have been trying to think about Ingrid's frog Boe rather than all these slugs... but they would come and hunt her down with their horns in her mind if she didn't get this bit of the essay done now. She wrote down a few sentences about the contents of the cauldron suddenly expanding like boiling milk and a thick, smelly slime that was difficult to clean up being exuded (and going everywhere since the cauldron couldn't contain it). That sounded sufficiently nasty. Sita looked back up at the girl, replying and her words accompanied with a bright smile:
"Oh, no worries. I have no right to expect the help of an imaginative colour anyway. Potions is completely insoluble." Sita grinned and then added, "But the Potions is what I have to get done, unfortunately. You can help me most by distracting me so I don't have to do it? My name's Sita, by the way."

[Sophia Hallington H7]

Sophia watched as Sita wrote down her answer...completely different to what she had thought, but still didn't sound too familiar...she wanted to drop Potions as soon as possible, which would be after her OWLs in 2 1/2 years, which seemed to be 2 1/2 years too long, as that was all she had done so far. She hoped to study Herbology, Arithmancy for sure, and 2 or 3 of COMC, DADA, Charms and Transfiguration, though she would have to improve her practical skills at the latter two, although she always got good grades for the essays. History of Magic was another confirmed no-way'er, as it was so boring, and Astronomy was a partial no-way'er, as she didn't know how she would cope being up until the early hours almost every night-it was bad enough now, with only 3 lessons a week. But every night, with loads of long pieces of homework that she expected to have in the last 2 years, would be mental torture!

But anyway, Sophia thought she'd better answer Sita's question, and introduce herself. "Nice name! I'm Sophia. Sophia Hallington, 3rd year. I love your quill, by the way! Sophia loved pink...not her favourite colour-that would be yellow, and purple, but pink was very close behind. She was quite fond of blue aswell, and liked most colours, except brown and grey.

"I have no idea why it would be purple...just a personal whim, more than anything...and if you have to chop the slugs, then my theory sounds so rediculous...I don't remember a thing from first year potions at all!" Sophia laughed at the thought of chopped slugs jumping out at you, and pinching your nose...she automatically raised her hand to her nose, like she usually did, in these sorts of situations... "And I don't actually think that they are soluble, but I'm sure they must, like, melt or burn or something, in the boiling potion...I dunno...". She now realised why she hadn't been put in Ravenclaw, which was probably her second choice of house after Hufflepuff...although she was pretty clever, she just didn't make the virtually-perfect grades needed for Ravenclaw, who had a reputation for being the clever-people house.

[Sita Mehadi H7]

"Sophia?" Sita said to confirm the name the other Hufflepuff had just told her, committing it to her memory and attempting to make a link to the girl's appearance in her mind so she could be as confident as possible she knew what she was called the next time she saw her. "I must try to remember that then," she said, ample explanation for the short pause in her conversation skills her her opinion. It hardly mattered if Sophia didn't understand the mental process that meant she'd just gone through was though. "Who... 3rd year?" she asked. "So you're starting all your OWLs courses next year then? I suppose first year stuff is a bit far off then... I meant Potions is actually quite interesting but I doubt I'll remember much of what we're doing now in a couple of years. That raises the question whether it's actually worth doing it, doesn't it, since technically I'm not learning anything in the long term?"

Sita looked at Sophia earnestly for a moment to back up her last point before grinning slightly at her having complimented her quill. "Oh right, thanks!" she said, inspecting it momentarily before starting to phrase a few more sentences with its help of transferring ink onto the parchment she was using. "I think I'm going to have a collection of quills by the time I finish Hogwarts which I just won't have any use for. I'll have to donate them to the 'Bewildered First Year Trust' I think. We could do with one of those where you can go and borrow stuff without any trouble if you lose things. It's scarily easy to lose things." Sita smiled at Sophia, knowing she was chattering away a little. She hardly thought it mattered. If the other girl had been busy doing homework like Sita should be at this very moment in time, it would have been a different matter altogether - she would have had to keep the atmosphere slightly more peaceful. But she didn't appear to be busy... was she? Sita caught sight of the book Sophia was holding and bit her lip momentarily. Hmmm. Well, she wasn't reading it at the moment. She'd shut up when she'd thought of something else to write into her Potions essay.

She stayed quiet for a while, writing a whole paragraph of her essay before looking back up again. The sooner she got this done the better. Leisure time was much more fun than having to spend all your time half-working. Though work time was much less tedious when you could talk. "Ew..." she said ponderously as she pictured what Sophia had suggested before dismissing it out of mind as another thought hit her. "Hey, you share your first initial with me!" she said with more excitement than the revelation was really due. "Look..." Sita turned to the front of her Potions textbook to reveal where she'd written her name into the book so that it didn't get lost, keeping one hand inserted into the book at the page she was using. Each word of her name was on a different line, and the capital letters at the start of her forename and surname were enlarged with different shades of colours progressing throughout them as she'd coloured them in. The rest of the letters were also coloured in but only with one colour per letter. "I'd make it sparkle or something," she said to Sophia, "But I'm not all that great at Charms to be honest with you and I've only got the one Potions book so I could do with not setting it on fire." Sita smiled at the older Hufflepuff and flipped back to the page she'd been using, once again turning her mind to the Potions essay she needed to complete.

[Sophia Hallington H7]

"Yep, OWLs next year for me...and I just can't wait!" said Sophia, sarcastically. She was completely dreading the OWLs to come, as she found the 3rd year work hard enough as it was, what with the pressure of the teacher going on about OWLs this, OWLs that...it was enough to driver her insane! And to think of NEWTs...they would surely be the death of her!

"And as for Potions, I completely agree. In my opinion, we should have full choice of OWLs, and only have to do 5, or 7 or something...I mean, I know for certain that I'm not going to do anything to do with potions after Hogwarts...."

Sophia opened her book, and read a couple of pages while Sita jotted down some notes for her essay. She was getting to a good part in her book-a shopping centre had just been bombed, and one of the main characters has been accused of planting it. She absolutely loved this book-Noughts and Crosses-and had read it many times before.

Sophia noted Sita's name in her Potions book. "oooo...preety writing! Yeah, it would be coolif you could make it sparkle or something, but I don't have the charms knowledge or anything, and I don't think Snape would be pleased if it went wrong! Do you know any OWL or NEWT students that may be able to help?"

[Sita Mehadi H7]

Sita nodded at Sophia's words with a small smile given for her sarcasm. It would be a while before she was at that stage herself of having to worry about OWLs, but she didn't mind. She wasn't desperate to get out of Hogwarts. She'd grown up knowing she would in all likelihood be coming here, so it was just that next stage onwards in her life.
"Mmmm..." she said as she considered what the other Hufflepuff had said. "Well there are some things I'm just not very good at but I'll have to take them nevertheless. I'm not very good at Transfiguration or Defence Against the Dark Arts as far as I can see from my marks so far. Not particularly strong at Charms either... but I suppose they think you need those subjects. Worrying for me if you do." Sita smiled a little to herself. She didn't mind, even if she did occasionally feel she was being left behind Ingy because her friend was cleverer than her. As long as they remained friends she wouldn't mind because she had her own subjects she could find interest and flair in.

Sita bent her head over her work as she always did when concentrating and frowned at the last words she'd written. They didn't make sense at all. "Oh bother," she muttered to herself, and took out a wooden ruler with which she drew several thick lines across the words. The only other alternative was to copy the whole thing out again onto a clean piece of parchment since using a vanishing spell would probably clean a little bit too much of the ink away. Most likely her entire essay. And if the only comment she got was something like 'Carelessly presented', at least that would show the teacher had had nothing else to complain about. The lines completed, Sita used a piece of blotting paper to make sure they didn't smudge everywhere over the rest of her work because that really would be a disaster, before looking up at Sophia again.
"I don't actually find Potions the worst of my subjects. I don't like Snape very much - he's not the nicest of teachers - but there's nothing wrong with Potions in itself." Sita smiled at Sophia. "Dunno whether I'll do anything related to it - don't really know what I'm going to do later on in life yet - but it's one of my better subjects. Though that isn't saying too much, I suppose."

Sita looked down at her essay once more and this time attacked it with vigour. She had sighted the end, and she didn't look up again until she'd finished it. The silence seemed fairly amicable though. They both had things to be getting on with. She wrote the last word with a flourish and then tucked the essay inside her textbook, dropping the heavy tome on the floor with a loud thud. That was always satisfying, just letting the weight of the work fly away from you into nothingness once you'd dealt with it.
"There, done!" she said triumphantly. "Can't say I do know any older students talented enough to do it without making my book a smouldering ruin though. I'll just have to make do until I go home this Easter, I suppose. Then I can get my dad to do it. Maybe it'd look nice if it shimmered?" Sita stood up and placed her hands on the back of the chair she'd been sitting on as she looked around the room. "Oooh, what are you reading by the way?" she asked the other girl as she caught a glimpse of the title, coming round behind her to have a look. "I like reading lots myself. Mainly adventure stories for me but almost anything will do me really." Sita smiled happily as she started rearranging the yellow ribbon she had in her hair to make sure it was neat and tidy.

[Sophia Hallington H7]

"Congratulations! I don't think the teacher will be too bothered about the line...on second thoughts, it is Snape though..." Sophia, like many students at Hogwarts, absolutely hated Snape. The fact that Potions was practically her worst subject (according to her exam results from last year-she only got 57%-apparently the equivalent of a P at OWL...and her worst result) made the matter much, much worse.

Sophia handed Sita her book-'Noughts and Crosses', which was one of her favourite books, and had been since she had been given it as a Christmas (or was it Birthday?) present the previous year, when she had just turned 13, from one of her friends back home. They still kept in contact, exchanging letters and such, but they had both moved on in the past few years since Primary school, and the letters became less and less frequent-one every 2 months, at the most.

"It's about 2 friends-Sephy and Callum-Sephy is a Cross-the ruling class of their society, and Callum is a nought-the lower class people. It's a great book-you should maybe try and read it sometime in the future?" She had read the book many times since she had been given it, and knew the story off by heart, but the ending made her cry every time she read it.

"Making the words shimmer would look nice. It's a shame that my Charms skills aren't that good, so I can't really help...but hey, if your dad can help, then there shouldn't be too much of a problem".

[Sita Mehadi H7]

((Hang on, objection - the Noughts and Crosses series is a trilogy, not four books. You may need to do some editing in an earlier post since I already described the front cover of Noughts and Crosses here... ))

Sita grinned at Sophia's congratulations and since she was standing up behind her to look at her book gave a little curtsey just for fun. "Thanks - you're so encouraging," she said lightly at the other Hufflepuff's slight doubt, adding, "Well, it's Snape. He can deal - his homework isn't going to get to take up any more of my time." Sita smiled and took the book from Sophia, half listening to her explanation as she examined the cover. It was quite striking - half black and half white, and she could see a cross and a nought on it as well. Sita nodded at what Sophia had said and proceeded to read the back cover, frowning a little as she did so because it took concentration. Sita could read fine; just slower than some people. She didn't tend to read all that often and she said as much as she handed the book back to Sophia.

"I don't actually read very much," Sita confessed. "There's always something else to be doing - I like tennis a lot and... lots of sports really. But reading is what the clever people do, so maybe I should try it out." Sita pondered that thought for a moment before deciding, "I'll read it over the summer or something when I can borrow it from the library at home - I doubt the library here would have it. But if you say it's great it most likely is. I'm never very good at picking out books I'll enjoy." Sita realised she'd closed the book when she handed it back to Sophia and frowned immediately, taking it back off the other Hufflepuff. "Sorry about that," she apologised as she handed it back once more, this time open on the right page. "You were on page 206." Sita smiled, this time going back to take her seat, where she took a blank sheet of parchment, drew some rough squares and started to shade them in in a similar way to the letters in her Potions textbook.

"Mmm... only problem with my dad helping is that I really don't know whether I'm patient enough to wait that long," she said with a small grin. She could be patient if need be - it took plants a while to grow, after all! - but she preferred to just get on with things. Plants were growing all the time; they just did things slowly and steadily. So she should be working towards being able to charm the writing herself - however long that took. "I mean it's... what, nearly February now? We have to wait all the time until the end of March or April for Easter holidays!" She smiled with her words to show she wasn't really at all worked up about it, and continued to shade in the growing block of colour. "You see, the good thing about a piece of parchment," she said as she pointed to it in demonstration, "is that it's just that and nothing more. It doesn't matter if I set this on fire as long as there are some older students in the room to make sure the whole castle doesn't burn down."

[Sophia Hallington H7]

((I have now done the editing of the earlier post...I even looked to see what was happeneing at page 206 in the book :-p))

Sophia looked at Sita as she was looking at the back of the book, wondering if it was actually suitable for a 1st year student...with issues such as rape, murder, terrorism, and racism taken to the extreme, Noughts and Crosses was not a book for the faint hearted...and the ending...so sad! She had never read a sadder ending in her life, and Sophia had read a lot of books...

"I hope Snape IS fine with it..." Sophia said, after she had been given her book back, which happened to be looking quite battered, having been read so many times..."I mean, he's not exactly the nicest teacher, is he? And his first name is Severus, which is the Latin for strict, apparently..." Sophia's parentls had studied Latin, and had taught her some basics of the language...

" And it's good to read, when you can. It's supposed to have all kinds of benefits-it increases your vocabulary, widens your imagination, and the more you read, the better and faster at it you'll become. But sports are also good to do! I quite like tennis myself, actually...and Cricket can be fun to watch...like the Ashes...just when it comes to reading, I am fairly biased as to it's benefits..." Sophia blushed, as she was going into one of her frequent rambles, that often happened. It was as if once she got talking about something, she found it hard to stop for at least 5 minutes...

"And if you're really that impatient, maybe you could ask Professor Flitwick or someone to help? I'm sure he'd be more than happy to help a student, even if it is just to make a name shimmer or sparkle, in the front of a textbook.." Sophia liked Flitwick..he always seemed to be jolly, and he obviously loved his job, as the Charms teacher at Hogwarts.