Chapter 2
Stella woke up from a loud bang. Alarmed she opened the curtains of her bed, to find Pandora in the midst of dozens of metal buckets. She seemed to have fallen on her bum. When she noticed Stella she turned around wide eyed.
“Sorry I didn’t mean to wake you” she whispered as if trying not to wake her up more.
“Are you ok?” Stella asked worried.
“Yes, yes I’m fine. I was trying to build this contraption to water my plant’s regularly” She pointed at the buckets and some strings on the ground.
“It’s not perfect yet but I have a plan. I just need to do some more reading. Wanna come to the library?” Pandora was speaking as fast as she was thinking it.
“How about we get breakfast first?” Stella suggested slightly overwhelmed.
That seemed to bring pandora back into this reality and she nodded enthusiastically.
They had the day of the today. As Dumbledore had said they should roam around and get to know Hogwarts. So Stella hadn’t planed on getting up so early and neither had the rest of Hogwarts so the great hall was quite empty when they arrived.
It was a bit of a relive, since Stella wasn’t looking forward to the crowd’s of Gossiping students anyway. Pandora talking about her plant watering idea was by far more relaxing.
Since there wasn’t that many student’s yet the breakfast was quite small at least compared to black family meals. Stella enjoyed that it was less overwhelming, just kind of comfy.
After she had some pumpkin juice and a few slices of toast she decided to make her way to the Gryffindor common room to talk to Sirius.
She would join Pandora in the library later.
The problem was, she didn’t know where the Gryffindor common room was. She had read where it was supposedly located, but these things where never really clear.
After wandering around for a while she ended up in a corridor which she was convinced was the one she had red about.
She was aware that the dorms weren’t supposed to be easy to find, but she had no clue where it could be. There was barely any doors and all of them were locked, but there was a bunch of portrait’s watching her struggle to find the common room, with out giving her a hint.
She felt humiliated and was about to give up when one of the portrait’s swung to the side and the guy with the scar’s looked out.
“I knew I heard someone out here” he said
“I need to speak with my brother” she attempted to walk past him acting as if it was her birth right to enter this room.
Lupin stopped her very easily. He was taller and probably stronger than all the other first years combined.
“Move” Stella demanded in a cold tone. No one had ever dared to handle her like that.
“Why so pissed?” He asked with a mocking smile.
Stella had still not forgiven him for the rude comment on the train and now he was being like this. She needed to remind him of who she was.
“I know you didn’t have parent’s to teach you how to behave, so I’ll let this one slide, but you better not get in my way again. I am a black and you don’t want to know how my family handles filth like you.”
The boy seemed startled by the suddenly threats and he took a step back.
Stella used that to slip into the common room, but seeing his face, she started regretting her tone.
The Lupin boy seemed to have gotten over the surprise rudeness of this otherwise well behaved girl and started his comeback.
“You really think you’re royalty, don’t you?”
Before Stella could answer, a blond girl who had been sitting in the common room chimed in.
“Who is that?” She asked.
“A stuck up bitch” Lupin answered.
Stella gave him a cold look and then turned to the girl. She was really pretty. She had waist long blond hair and green eyes. In her eyes Stella could already see the judgement.
“I’m Stella Black” she answered the girl’s question properly.
The Girl looked her up and down “Should’ve guessed that” she said “Black hair, body made of nothing but bones, white as a ghost and those blue eyes. You look like the female version of Sirius.” The things she said where true but her tone made clear that she disliked Stella. She probably believed Lupin.
“I am going to see my brother and you better stay out of my way” Stella looked at Lupin with a warning stare then turned a round to go to the boys dorm.
When the girl called after her
“Oh so sorry that Remus being in his own common room is an inconvenience to you malady” they started giggling.
Stella decided to just ignore them and go talk to Sirius.
Sirius invited her in. Their dorm wasn’t as pretty and elegant as the Ravenclaw dorms where. It was all in this bright red and orange and there floor was covered in clothes and books already and the only tidy place seemed to be Sirius’s bed. So they said down there together.
“How are you enjoying Gryffindor?” Stella asked a bit worried.
“It’s great. I love it here. Isn’t it amazing how we are the first family members not to be in Slytherin. I mean it’s an historic event.” Stella couldn’t really agree. She wasn’t looking to make history, she just didn’t want to be killed by their parent’s. But she was more surprised by Sirius’s enthusiasm for Gryffindor.
“Really you like it here?” She looked around a little disgusted. “Even with that Lupin guy and that absolutely rude blonde girl down there?”
“Remus isn’t that bad. I mean what he said on the train wasn’t entirely untrue, was it? And I don’t know what your problem with Marlene McKinnon is.”
“She was mean to me and I’m not stuck up”
“I’m sure you made a rude comment about her blood status or something and that’s what I mean with you being stuck up.”
Stella couldn’t believe Sirius would just side with a stranger like that.
“I didn’t say anything she started being mean out of nowhere. Why are you being like this?”
“I’m sure you thought you where in the right and that’s astonishing to me. How someone as smart as you can just live in their little bubble like that. You just read Fathers books and don’t question a thing.
Did you even look at a book from the Hogwarts library try to find out wether all the people you hate so much are actually that bad?
No you just run around assuming that you are always the best always right, thats why these very nice people can’t stand you.”
Stella went cold. If she hadn’t she would have cried.
She had assumed that she and Sirius would go through Hogwarts as best friends.
He had been her best friend ever since she came home from germany. He had been her most important person. She had thought they would be in the same house and do everything together, but it seemed as though Sirius had found better people immediately.
She shouldn’t have been so surprised, Sirius always found friends easily. Why would he choose to hang out with her when he had other option’s.
She gave him a cold stare. “Well then I’ll leave you to these oh so perfect bloodtraitors and mudbloods. I’ll be in the library.”
In that moment James came out of the bathroom, he had obviously heard that and stared at the ground awkwardly.
Stella stormed out.
On the way to the library she met Remus, Marlene and some other Girls who seemed to be on their way to the great hall.
Remus opened his mouth to make some mean comment, but Stella gave him such a deadly stare that he stayed quiet.
She found Pandora alone at a table covered in books and sketches of her idea. These sketches kind of made it more clear what Pandora’s plan actually was, but it still seemed extremely complicated.
“Wow wouldn’t it be easier if you just watered your plants. I could help you.”
Pandora turned around in surprise “it’s not about easy. This is just the beginning. I want to make something more mechanical now, but I’m going to use more advanced magic once I’m older and then I will make a watering can that gets up every time a plant needs water for it’s perfect development.
The can will get water and give the plants the right amount. I don’t know how it will work, but I’m sure there is a way. It will revolutionize the herbology industry.”
Under normal circumstances Pandoras motivation, would have gotten Stella just as caught up in the issue of self pouring watering cans, but she was still in a bit of a bad mood about Sirius calling her stuck up.
After a moment of silence Stella asked
“Hey Pandora, do you know wether books about Muggels are in the forbidden part of the library?”
Pandora looked up in surprise. “Only in pureblood houses, the muggle studies section is over there.”
Stella walked towards the shelves pandora had pointed at.
There was a ton of books, about all the different topics concerning muggles. Their science, their institutions, their technology. It seemed like there was so much to learn, that Stella wished she could take muggle studies as a first year. But she managed to only pick out the books that would help her find out wether Sirius was right.
She walked back to Pandora’s table with “history of muggles” and “pureblood supremacy throughout the times”
She spend about an hour digging threw these books. It turned out muggles did want to burn witches a very long time ago, but they only burned each other. Which made Stella feel horribly sorry for the poor innocent muggle women.
She learned a lot about the similarities between muggles and wizards and at least in her opinion they outweighed the differences by far. In the book about pureblood supremacy, she learned that there was a lot of bright witches and wizards who did not support it.
Her family played a big role in the development of discrimination in the wizarding world.
There was a lot of critic about that.
She had never really heard anyone criticizing the noble house of black before.
She was in the midst of reading about the black families politics effects on queer people, when Sirius tapped on her shoulder.
“Can we talk?” He asked quietly.
They went to sit at a different table. Stella didn’t let Sirius say anything she had to apologize first.
“You where right, I wasn’t being very prudent. I just read all about muggle history and the wrong’s of our family. I was wrong to think of some people the way I did and I’m sorry that you had to be associated with that kind of behavior.”
“Stella stop” Sirius interrupted her nervous rambling.
“Look when I said all that stuff I didn’t mean it. I was just scared that you didn’t support me being in Gryffindor. It’s just that you are the only family member I kind of expected to support me, but I realized it’s not your job to make me feel good about my house. I had a talk with James.”
Stella remembered the horrible stuff she said before she stormed out and how James had heard them.
“He must hate me now.”
“No, I told him that you just said that because you where mad and that you’re not like that and I was right look at all the reading you have done.” Sirius smiled.
Stella hugged him “So we are good?”
“We’re good.”
In that moment an owl entered the library. An owl Stella knew a bit to well it dropped of an envelope in front of the black siblings.
“A howler” Stella said, slight panic in her voice.
“Let’s open it or It’ll only get worse” Sirius said sounding calm, but his face seemed even more pale then usual.
As soon as they opened the envelope, the cold voice of their mother filled the entire library.
“Sirius Orion Black you are a disgrace to this family, don’t think that just because you aren’t at home that there won’t be consequences for your outrageous behavior.
Gryffindor is a house for bloodtraitors, mudbloods and other half bread filth, not for a member of the noble house of black and especially not for it’s heir.
I have tried to fix this but it is irreversible. You better not step out of line another time or I will be left with no other option but to punish you in a way you will not forget that easily.
And as for your sister. Girl’s aren’t supposed to be smart, they are supposed to behave. Don’t forget your place.”
With that the nasty envelope burned down.
Of course they had to be at the quietest place of Hogwarts when it went off. Everyone must have heard it. Sirius’s face had now gained some color again and turned a little red.
The librarian walked towards them in anger “This is a place of silence.” She hissed, but she was interrupted by the strict judging teacher from earlier. The Gryffindor house teacher professor Mcgonagall didn’t seem as judgmental anymore.
“Oh it was clearly not their intention to receive a howler in here today” She shut down the librarians rant.
“I am sorry about that” she explained while she cleaned away the ashes of the howler with a twirl of her wand.
“I am sure you two are full of potential and your houses will further enhance your strength.”
“Oh and Girls are smart look at you spending your first day in the library.” She turned around and left
“I hope all our teachers are like that.” Stella said.
“I don’t know she’s a little to strict for my liking”
“Are you serious?”
“Always” he said and Stella had to laugh as if it was the first time he made that joke.
They went to get Pandora and head down to have dinner, but Pandora said she would still need a minute and they should already go.
Pandora was probably the only person to concentrate so much on something, that she didn’t even realize a howler went of.
On the way to the great hall Stella had to remind Sirius what that howler meant for him.
“I know that you know what mother meant with that punishment”
Sirius went cold just hearing Stella talk about it.
“Yes I am aware what she meant “
“It doesn’t matter wether it’s right or wrong, you need to dump your new friends”
“We are at Hogwarts now she can’t control me anymore”
“There is holiday’s”
“Sounds like a problem for future me”
“You want her to do that to you”
“No Stella I don’t want her to do that, but some things are worth it”
“You are telling me that the occasional chat with Potter and sharing a chocolate frog with Petigrew every now and then is worth that”
“It’s more than that I can have my own life here. I can be happy and if I’d let her destroy all of that, then it wouldn’t even make a difference wether I’m here or locked in a room in grimmault place for ever”
Stella couldn’t argue with that
“I just don’t want you to get hurt”
“I’m sure it will hurt less knowing what I’m doing it for” he gave her a reassuring smile
They reached the great hall
“Sirius I think it’s great that you got into the house you wanted to. You know you’ll always have my support right?”
He nodded but she could see he was relieved.
They entered the great hall and it was all eyes on them. A bunch of student where looking back and forth between them and the daily prophet, some where giggling about the howler in the library and others just stared at them as if they where Merlin himself.
Stella just strutted over to the Ravenclaw table and looked over to Sirius. He was sitting with the guys and they seemed to support him, maybe he was right. Before he had to take on all the responsibility in the black family he should have a few years of fun.
She wasn’t as lucky with her table Xenophilius showed her the quibbler which already had some theories as to why the black twins hadn’t ended up being in Slytherin. With adoption definitely being on the table.
Gilderoy wouldn’t stop asking her about how disappointed her parents must be, he was quite keen on sending in a tip to the daily prophet, so his name would be mentioned in the papers.
Luckily Pandora arrived eventually and told the boys to shove of.
She didn’t want to know all about what happened, just wether Stella was alright.
Even though she hated this, she was actually doing fine.
So they just talked about the classes they had tomorrow and which ones they where looking forward to the most.