Chapter 3
Chapter 3
She had gone to bed at a reasonable time, but Stella just wasn’t a morning person. That became very clear when Pandora started talking all about how care for magical creatures would be so much better than portions, while Stella was struggling to stay awake during breakfast.
Her favorite Cousin Andromeda surprisingly came over to the Ravenclaw table. Non of her family had even looked at her since she got sorted into Ravenclaw.
“Wir haben keine Marmelade mehr am Tisch könnte ich eure ausleihen?” she asked. Stella passed her the jam.
“French?” Gilderoy asked.
“Well somebody didn’t read the gossip magazines properly.
And how did that sound French?” Stella asked rather annoyed.
“No we are more the cliche villains” Andromeda chimed in.
“Russian?” Gilderoy guessed.
“German and we are not Villains.” Stella was quite annoyed now.
“Sure we aren’t. Congrats for making it into the smartest house by the way. I always knew you had it in you.” Andromeda said and then left with the jam.
That’s why she was her favorite cousin.
“I always found different languages to be quite inspiring, there are just different sounds they become letters, letters become syllables and syllables become words and all of the sudden there is meaning.” Pandora told Stella on their way to class.
“Like we could just make up our own language and we would be the only ones to understand it, isn’t that flabbergasting”
Stella thought about that for a minute. “As I know you it wouldn’t just be a normal language you are thinking about something more abstract am I right?”
“Yea I didn’t really mean words.”
“You mean something like sign language”
“No not like that ether, more like…Do you know how when you hug people in different situations or different people it’s always a different hug. You will never have the same hug two times. Shouldn’t that be something you can communicate with?”
Talking to Pandora had something calming about it and thinking about a language made of hugs was probably the most calming thing she could imagine.
It almost made her forget to be nervous about her first class.
They had charms first, since it was with the house teacher of Ravenclaw Professor Flitwick, a small man who welcomed them with a friendly smile.
Stella was sure that this was the most important class, since this was where they would learn all the basic spells they would need in day to day life. Her path was clear she was gonna be a house wife, that was all she could ever be, so she would need this class for her future.
That fact made her feel so much pressure, while she tried to concentrate on every detail that would bring her a little closer to mastering levitation.
But unwelcome thoughts entered her mind with the goal to make her panic.
What if she couldn’t master this spell it was the foundation of everything.
Or what if this was her weakest subject her parents where already disappointed in her for ending up in a house that isn’t suitable for girl’s.
Or what if she wasn’t able to produce magic and everyone would think she was a squib.
The professors voice brought her back.
They where supposed to try and levitate a feather.
Did she miss some important information, she didn’t feel ready.
The professor seemed to see her nervousness or maby everyone was a bit nervous so he added “don’t worry if you can’t see results immediately, charms need time and patients you will have my class to practice for at least a week. I will give you more time if you need it.”
She didn’t need to be able to do it right away, she had a week which seemed exaggerated.
The relive didn’t last long though. As she grabbed her want the panic set in again. She needed to succeed !
“LEVIOSA” she said with such intensity that Xenophilius jumped a little at the sharpness of her words.
Her arm shot into the air at the end of the wand movement and the feather was swung up towards the sealing and crashed into it making a small boom sound.
Stella didn’t know feathers could make a sound or crash with such intensity at all.
Flitwick seemed surprised too. He looked at the feather, which was now making it’s way back to the ground, in sheer disbelieve.
“I’m sorry” Stella said wide eyed.
“No No don’t apologize this room is there to practice. You can break the sealing if it’s a part of your learning process for all I care.”
“You aren’t angry?”
“No rather impressed, that’s some strong magic you have got. I have never seen someone smash a feather against something with such strength.”
He looked at her interested with his friendly eyes.
“But it is important to be able to control your magic, especially when it’s that strong. How about you practice moving that feather around slowly.”
And that was exactly what she did for the rest of the lesson she let the feather fly around slowly, while the others tried to lift their feathers of the table. It was soothing in a way.
Flitwick went around giving corrections, but always leaving a gap between him and Stellas feather like he was scared it might hit him with the same force as earlier.
Stella had never viewed feathers as dangerous, on the other hand that tiny professor looked like he could be knocked over by a feather.
As they left the class Flitwick seemed very content, everyone had managed to levitate the feather at least a foot up into the air.
Flitwick had given everyone five points for Ravenclaw and told them how extraordinary it was for everyone to get that far. It was the first time Stella had felt proud for her house.
They had potions next. Stella was delighted to see that they had potions with the Gryffindors.
She immediately said next to Sirius, since she knew Pandora would be okey sitting next to Xenophilius who seemed interested in all her theories.
Just Gilderoyd seemed unhappy that Pandora had stolen his partner and he had to sit alone, but Stella didn’t really care.
She was exited to learn about the different potion’s, but all they talked about was how to use the different utensils. The redhead sitting at the next table was writing down everything quite enthusiastically. Their professor, Professor Slughorn seemed quite pleased with that girl’s enthusiasm.
Stella wanted the professor to like her as well so she raised her arm every time he had a question for them.
The girl with the fire like hair did the same, until it almost felt like a friendly competition. Stella liked that girl already. She found out that her name was Lily Evans.
Sirius on the other hand didn’t have much understanding for her interest in the class.
He mockingly called her a nerd and chucked paper airplanes across the classroom to James, whenever the teacher wasn’t watching, much to the annoyance of Lily who was sitting right in the paper airplanes route.
Stella still enjoyed sitting next to Sirius since she had the feeling she didn’t see him often enough anymore, because they had been sorted into different houses, with their different common rooms.
Their last class was transfiguration. Their teacher was the strict woman who Stella had found out was called professor McGonnagal.
They didn’t learn anything practical yet ether, but the teacher showed them all kinds of transfiguration, which included her transforming herself from human to cat and back. She also discussed all the organizational aspects of her class.
Stella tried to ignore the presence of the slytherins as good as she could, the same way she had ignored Remus earlier. Still she had the feeling that she was constantly being judged.
So she was relived when classes where over and she could just have a nice non judgmental chat with pandora over some lunch, before they had there first flying classes.
She felt like she was slowly getting used to these meals, Ravenclaw even Gilderoy and that was a hard one.
She was left with that feeling of comfort, sometimes even considering to let her guard down.
It was a dangerous feeling.
She was supposed to represent the noble house of black and not to get comfortable. Maybe this was the reason her parents had wanted them to be in Slytherin.
But she felt right at this table. People always said that Ravenclaw was for the smart people, but she felt like it was for the weird. And no matter how much she wanted to be normal and act the way she was supposed to, she was weird.
She fit into Ravenclaw the same way Pandora and the guys did.
It wasn’t appropriate for woman to be on brooms, but it was so much fun. There flying lesson had been a success for the most part.
Gaspart Shingelton and Tilden Toots weren’t the biggest fans of flying. Gaspart wasn’t a fan of sports in general and Tilden seemed to be scared of heights.
But the rest of them were enjoying themselves. Xenophilius and Gilderoy were racing each other Pandora was looking at some trees and Stella enjoyed the wind in her hair, twirling around she even tried some flips. Her teacher wasn’t very happy about that, since it was dangerous, but Stella couldn’t care less. It was to much fun, not to do it.
Stella even thought about joining the quidditch team at some point. Her parents would be mad, but maybe Sirius was right and they should use the time away from there parents to do what they wanted to do. Right now it didn’t really matter since one couldn’t join till second year anyway.
They were racing up the stairs to there common room, still sweaty from there flying lesson.
“I’ll shower first” Stella called “not if I get there first” pandora answered taking two steps at a time.
Laughing they bumped into someone.
“Sorry” Stella exclaimed before she saw who it was.
“Watch it” the blond girl said in an angry tone. It was Marlene Mckinnon.
“Not very Lady like to run like that, maybe you aren’t that much better than everyone else after all”
Marlene said with a smug smile.
“Who is that?” Pandora asked realizing that Stella knew her.
“No one worth knowing” she answered in a cold tone and started walking away.
This is why she shouldn’t have fun and shouldn’t get comfortable. She wasn’t representing her family in a good way and people were realizing, at least McKinnon was.
“Why was she so angry?” Pandora seemed worried.
“I don’t know she’s just a mean person”
“Maybe she isn’t doing well”
“She just doesn’t like me”
“Yea she got the wrong impression of you, you don’t think your better than everyone else, even though you have good reason to.”
“My family…”
“Not because of your family, because you are a great person and if that girl new that she wouldn’t be so mean.”
In that moment Stella realized how much she liked Pandora, she got this strong urge to hug her, but that was inappropriate so they just walked up together in content silence.
“You can shower first if you want” Stella said when they reached the top of the stairs.