Strange Stares
After a quick breakfast, it was off to the first class of the day. Cyrus and Spencer rushed to be ahead of the group. Tess and Morwena walked a little behind them, keeping a pace that was business-like without being rushed. Rhiannon and Pauline followed right behind. Farther back, Tess could hear Vanessa's wretched cackle.
Umberto had adopted Vanessa during breakfast. He invited her to sit between him and his Muggleborn protege, Gordon. Umberto kept a steady commentary for Vanessa and Gordon. From where she was sitting, Tess could not hear what he said. He often made Vanessa laugh, however, and her cackle was inescapable.
Tess could not tell how Morwena interpreted this development. It was clear from Umberto's interactions with Morwena that the two had some history. He was a handsome boy, if still on the small side. Morwena clearly respected Umberto if she thought he could be Head Boy one day.
Binns had not made his appearance yet, so Tess too the time to survey the room. The four girls sat in a line, with Rhiannon at the end of the row and Tess next to Calliope. The Ravenclaw girls followed from there. Vanessa, with Umberto and Gordon, sat a row back.
Tess turned in her seat to see who was sitting behind her. There were five Gryff boys, led by dashing, blue-eyed Paul Hewson. They were at the top row of the auditorium. Hewson had his feet on the desk in front of him. The others were goofing off, talking, hitting one another.Rascals, the lot of them, thought Tess.
By contrast, the Ravenclaw boys were solemn and serious, ready to prove themselves at their first academic challenge. Ronald Reuel, in particular, seemed tense with anticipation. Tess had heard Ronald was quite the wonk when it came to the Ancient Wizarding Wars. He re-created famous battles in his spare time with intricately painted figurines that moved and fought on their own.
Tess knew most of the Hufflepuffs, girls and boys. The one she didn't know was Liam Wren. He seemed to quickly emerge as the alpha of that group. With him were three boys from Godric’s Hollow, and they followed in his wake. They had taken seats directly behind the Hufflepuff girls, a move Tess felt was sweetly protective.
As she watched Liam, surreptitiously, discreetly, she saw him move easily from a roguish, Gryffindor-like grin to a more thoughtful, Ravenclaw-like seriousness.
In the back row, but as far from the Gryffindor boys as they could get, sat Cyrus and Spencer. Tess looked for tension between the two groups of boys, but there was nothing to see. The Gryffs ignored Cyrus and Spencer, whom they out-numbered six to two (the five boys were augmented by Gillian Roycester).
Cyrus was casting hard, angry looks down at someone. With careful observation, Tess deduced that Wren was the object of this derision. Wren would turn his head every so often in the direction of the two Slytherins. Mike Bendrix, too, seemed to be keeping an eye on them.
I wonder what that is all about, mused Tess.
When Binns came through the wall, Pauline flinched. Despite Rhiannon’s preparation, the first time she saw a ghost was a shock. The Ravenclaw girls, however, were so focused on the lecture that they didn’t notice, and they were the only group that worried Tess.
Delia had warned Tess that Binns was a dreadful lecturer, but even her warnings fell short of the actual experience. Tess couldn’t follow a word the ghost said. She looked around the room. A few students were taking notes. Liam Wren had opened his textbook and was flipping through the pages. Others were staring off into space.
Tess gave another half-hearted effort to pay attention, but it was no use. Morwena will know what the homework assignment is, Tess reasoned. If I do the homework, I should do okay on the tests, and that’s all that matters.
Daydreaming seemed the perfect way to pass the hour. In her mind’s eye, she ran through the boys that she knew. The eleven-year-olds in the room held little interest for her, especially when there were so many other handsome boys about. She thought of Robert Kaufmann and his kind smile. I think he has a younger sister in Ravenclaw, thought Tess. I bet he thinks of me as another little sister.
Her mind drifted to the boy with dark brown hair, the seeker whose picture was in the Quidditch museum. What was his name? Scott, I think. He seemed so glad to see me! I must look like an old girlfriend of his. She recalled the look of wonder on his face as he gazed at her, and felt a thrilling shiver of anticipation and fear.
At the end of the lecture, the Gryffindor boys bolted from their chairs and took to the Grand Staircase like a stampede of minotaur. Tess and her friends passed them a few minutes later as they were being dressed down by Lucida Guishar, the Ravenclaw Prefect.
Tess and her friends walked gingerly along the damp path to the greenhouse. “That was weird,” said Pauline. “A ghost teacher!”
“You’ll get used to it,” said Rhiannon.
“I doubt it,” said Pauline.
Morwena, angrily: “I doubt I’ll ever get used to that lecture style! Could he be any less engaging! He droned on and on, as if we weren’t even there! I don’t know how we are to learn anything from him!”
“We’ll just have to do our homework,” said Tess, “and do the best we can on the tests.”
“I don’t know about you,” said Morwena, coldly, “but I am trying to keep up with Calliope, and Reuel. An Acceptable in History is not good enough!”
Tess made no answer to this, and Morwena retreated into her own thoughts, brooding darkly. The girls came to the greenhouses. A wooden sign pointed energetically to the proper door.
They came to a large classroom. Despite the glass walls all around, it was warm and humid inside. Instead of desks, there were several tables set about the room, four chairs to a table. Tess and her friends swooped down on one of the tables to prevent Vanessa, or anyone else for that matter, from joining them.
As soon as all the were present, Professor Spout addressed the class. "In the spirit of Inter-House cooperation, I'd like to mix you up a bit. Please come up to the front of the room. When I call your name, I will tell you where to sit."
This command elicited irritated sighs from many spots in the room. Tess and her friends got up and stood by Sprouts rolling chalkboard without complaint. Sprout seemed keen on placing, as much as possible, two girls and two boys at each table, and mixing the Houses up as well. Tess ended up sitting next to Pauline and across from two Gryffindor boys, Larry and Adam.
Tess did not know the boys, but from their thick accents, she pegged them as Irish. Without Morwena or Calliope around, Tess felt a rush of freedom. She could relax a little. She gazed at the boys and wondered how she might best fluster them. Pauline gave her a sly smile. She seemed to be thinking the same thing.
Larry and Adam seemed quite pleased with the seating arrangements. "Didn't see the likes of these two 'round our neighborhood now, did we?" said Larry. "Proper English girls, they are."
"How 'bout a smile in the name of Inter-House Cooperation?" said Adam.
Pauline gave him a withering stare. Then, leaning over to Tess, she whispered, "Do you know any French?"
"A little."
"More than these two know, I bet." Pauline straightened, and the two shared another sly smile.
Professor Sprout lectured for a time before giving them an assignment to work on. As soon as they were on their own again, Pauline burst out in a long torrent of French. Adam and Larry's eyes went wide.
Tess knew only a few phrases of French, and these she interspersed whenever Pauline paused for a breath. The phrases she knew best were "What time is it?", "Do you know the way to the restaurant?", and "The food is delicious!"
There were times when Tess' response to whatever Pauline had just said was so ridiculous, Pauline had to bite her lip to keep from laughing. The ruse was enough to fool the Irish boys, however. They were in awe of these two sophisticated beauties.
Finally, Larry said, "Not only do we got to learn to speak proper English, but we got to learn bloody French, too? This is going to be tougher than I thought."
Across the room, Morwena was paired with Cyrus Kane and two Gryffs, Gillian Roycester and Dave Evans. Rhiannon drew Alma Krauss and Roan McLaggen. Vanessa, meanwhile, was paired with two boys, Paul Hewson and Gordon Sumner. Gordon kept quiet while Paul and Vanessa chatted away cheerfully. Sprout had to shush them twice, when a joke of Paul sent Vanessa into a loud, hysterical cackle.
Paul and Vanessa stayed together in the second half of the period, as Sprout gave them all a tour of the green house. Tess kept looking back at them wondering if they might start holding hands. They didn't. Eleven's a bit early for that, she mused, but with Vanessa, one never knows.
By the time class ended, Tess found that she was quite hungry. There had been the usual spread at breakfast, but she hadn't eaten much, only some marmalade toast and a few spoonfuls of eggs. Now she was ready for a proper meal.
In the Great Hall, Tess sat next to her cousin, Delia. "How did your first day go?" Delia asked her.
"Fine. We've just had Sprout and Binns. History is a bore, but Herbology is interesting, I guess."
"Binns makes History boring," said Delia, sagely. "I had Divination this morning with Firenze, the centaur. Ah-mazing. You must take his class when you get to your Third Year. Mind, nothing Firenze says makes any sense, but he's so handsome it doesn't matter!"
"I miss my Ravenclaw friends," said Tess. "I haven't hardly seen Cal or Mona. We've been stuck with the Gryffs all morning."
"You'll have more of that next, with Double Potions," said Delia.
"What's the Potion Master like?"
"DeVere? He's fine. He loves his eager Slytherins almost as much as he adores his clever Ravenclaws. Besides, all you do on the first day is boil water."
"That's easy! I've been helping in the kitchen since I was seven."
Delia leaned close to Tess and asked, conspiratorially, "How are you girls getting along?"
Tess lowered her voice to match Delia’s softer tone. "Fine. It's hard with five girls. Someone's always going to feel left out. I'm trying hard not to be that girl."
Delia gazed keenly at her. "The four of you seem to be quite close. Have you considered forming a coven?"
Tess shrugged. "I thought any group of witches was a coven. Is there some sort of process or ceremony we have to go through?"
"Well, the Slytherin Student Council must approve all new clubs, and covens are considered to be clubs. Usually, covens have a leader. It's often an older girl that guides them and gives advice. Formally, she's called the Mistress."
Vanessa threw that word at Morwena this morning, thought Tess. Morwena was certainly the leader of the bunch, the one who plans ahead and has a strategy worked out for everything. If the four of them formed a coven, Tess doubted Morwena would willingly cede power to an older girl.
It suddenly dawned on Tess that Delia was quietly positioning herself to be the Mistress of this new coven. I shouldn’t be surprised, mused Tess. This is Slytherin House after all. Everyone here is ambitious about something.
If Delia moves in to take control, Morwena will resist her. What will I do then? Stand with my cousin or with my new friends?
After lunch was Potions with DeVere. As advertised, DeVere seemed to prefer the quiet, eager Slytherins to the rowdy, restless Gryffs. For the lab, Tess paired with Morwena while Rhiannon paired with Pauline. This left Vanessa to fend for herself.
She was quickly rescued, however, by Paul Hewson. "In the Spirit of Inter-House Cooperation," he said grandly.
The assignment was to conjure and boil water in their cauldrons. This was an easy enough task for two kitchen savvy witches. Morwena and Tess finished the assignment in no time at all.
Rhiannon had to teach Pauline the charm to conjure water. Pauline had little control on her first attempt, and splashed water all over the table. But, the girls laughed, and Rhiannon helped clean it up.
This mishap was nothing compared to how the boys were faring. None of them, it seemed, had done much cooking. Umberto, paired with Gordon, was making slow, steady progress. Cyrus and Spencer, meanwhile, had conjured a blazing hot fire, then had trouble conjuring the water to go in it. Soon, their cauldron was red hot, and the drips of water that came out of their wands instantly evaporated.
So much for you and your fancy wand, Cy, thought Tess.
Vanessa and Paul laughed and talked their way through the period, and generally got nothing done. Tess begrudgingly admitted that they made a handsome couple: blond, fair-skinned Vanessa and the dark haired, blue-eyed rogue, Paul. Tess whispered to Morwena, "I'd get a Howler from my mum if I carried on with a Gryff boy like that. She'd find out, too - Delia would rat me out, if Professor Gregor didn't."
Morwena smiled slyly back at her. "You never know. Vanessa may get one yet."
DeVere swept the room, checking on the students' progress. He gazed in disapproval of the boys, both Slytherin and Gryffindor, who were struggling to complete this basic task. "Tsk," he said. "I may have to set a chart and spread the talent round a bit."
He paused at Tess and Morwena's table. "You two clearly know what you're doing. You've help your mothers in the kitchen for years, I'd wager." The two girls beamed up at him.
DeVere gave Tess a searching glance that made her blush. "What was your name again?"
Her throat felt tight, but she forced herself to speak. "Tess. And, this is Morwena."
DeVere gazed at Tess intently. "What was your surname, Miss Tess?"
"Oh. Covenshire. And she's a Felwich."
He nodded. "Yes, Covenshire. I remember, now. Good start to the term, both of you." He gave a curt bow of his head and moved on.
Odd, thought Tess. Why was he so keen to know my surname? And why didn't he even look at Morwena?