Making Efforts
Anna’s class schedule was very odd.
On the Sunday before classes started she’d finally taken a look at her timetable. There were so many empty spots that she was sure someone had made a mistake. But in comparing it to her roommates' timetables, she saw that their schedules were identical.
It appeared that each class was taught twice a week, aside from Astronomy, which was only shown once on her timetable, though for a longer time than the repeating classes. At her old school in Taunton Anna had classes all day, with a midday break for lunch. But on her first day at Hogwarts she’d only have two classes: Charms and Defence Against the Dark Arts.
Just the names of the classes had Anna’s imagination overflowing. She slept fitfully that Sunday night and awoke groggy on Monday when her roommates began shuffling around the dorm.
“Are we meant to wear these to class?” asked Theodora—Theo, as she liked to be called—one of Anna’s new roommates. Standing in front of her open trunk she held one of the tall, pointed hats that came with their uniforms.
“Erm—”
“Woah!” Patricia, Anna’s other roommate, cut Anna off. She stood at her own trunk, holding a yellow and black striped tie. “I bought solid black ones, I know it. Reckon the robes turn colour when we’re sorted?” she asked.
“I don’t—”
“Of course they do. They can’t expect us to buy four different sets of robes and just chuck the three sets we can’t use. It’s a magic school, Pat, think a little.”
Patricia bristled and stood a bit straighter. “It’s Patricia.”
“Whatever.” Theo rolled her eyes and threw a set of her own robes onto her bed before walking into their tiny bathroom and slamming the door.
“Don’t hog the bathroom, Theodora! Other people live here too, y’know.”
“Whatever!” Theo’s muffled shout came from behind the bathroom door.
Patricia rifled through her trunk, muttering heatedly to herself.
Anna sighed and climbed out of bed, though she wanted to curl back into the warm blankets.
Theo and Patricia had been bickering almost the entire weekend. Whenever they were in the same room some sort of argument broke out, no matter how trivial the matter was. Anna quickly gave up mediating when she’d realised that they weren’t even listening to her.
She grabbed her toothbrush and headed down the hall to the communal restrooms. Theo was normally quick in the bathroom but with Patricia having told her to hurry up, she’d likely spend hours in there.
In the common bathroom a few girls were already at the mirrors, fussing with their hair or washing their faces. Anna joined them. She rolled up the sleeves of her pyjamas and quickly washed her face, brushed her teeth, and ran her fingers through her hair to try flattening it down a bit. Her fingers caught in some of the curls and she winced when the tangles pulled on her scalp.
“I don’t see why they make us buy those stupid hats,” a girl on the other side of the restroom complained to her friend. “We only ever wear them for start of term feast. It’s a waste of money, if you ask me.”
Her friend hummed in agreement and spat out her toothpaste.
Anna gathered her own toothbrush and headed back to her dorm. Turns out they didn’t need to wear the hats after all.
As soon as she walked into her room, Anna heard loud knocking coming from inside. Patricia was hammering on the bathroom door, yelling at Theo to get out before she cursed her. Theo goaded her roommate from inside the bathroom, sniggering all the while.
Anna decided right then that she wouldn’t be telling either of them about the hats.
The sides of Anna’s head began to throb from their yelling. She yanked on her robes as quickly as she could, though she gave up on doing up her tie after the second attempt, leaving it limp around her neck. She grabbed her school bag and practically ran out of the room.
The common room was lit by early morning light and the faint glow of torches. Cedric was standing near the fire, talking to a boy sitting on the sofa.
“Morning Anna!” he called, smiling when he spotted her.
She flopped onto the sofa and let out a heavy breath. “My roommates are the worst.”
“They’re fighting again?” Cedric asked in shock.
“Yes! The moment they woke up they found something to argue about. It’s astounding they get anything else done.”
“Sounds like a rough go.” The boy Cedric had been talking with winced in sympathy. He looked a bit older. “My roommates were like that too in first year.”
“So what did you do?”
“Nothing,” he laughed. “I found somewhere else to sleep on the nights they truly wouldn’t give it a rest. Lucky for me they ran out of stuff to fight about pretty quick.”
“I hope I’m that lucky,” Anna muttered.
“Fingers crossed.” He tapped his crossed fingers on her knee and stood from the sofa. “See you two at breakfast.”
“See ya, Oisin!” Cedric called as the older boy left the common room with a backwards wave. He turned to Anna. “Breakfast?”
“Yeah, I suppose so.” Anna wasn’t thrilled at the thought of it. Each morning she went to the Great Hall all she could really eat was a bit of toast while everyone else enjoyed eggs, biscuits, sausages—the works. She hadn’t said anything, but the smell of it all made her a bit nauseous at times.
“I’ll just get changed and we can go,” said Cedric.
He came back just a few minutes later, dressed in his school robes with his necktie in a perfect knot. They left the common room in comfortable silence. Their steps echoed in the tunnel that led them to the kitchen. As they walked out from behind the stack of barrels and made their way past the kitchen, Anna considered asking the house elves for something other than toast but guilt washed through her when she saw how hard they were working.
The house elves were odd little creatures. Perhaps half of Anna’s height, the house elves were rather small and skinny, with long limbs and large bat-like ears, some of which sat straight up while others drooped. Each house elf had the same round eyes that seemed far too large for their heads. The most confusing part is that none of them wore clothes, per se. Instead they wore tea towels emblazoned with the Hogwarts crest, which were wrapped around them like togas.
She’d been startled when she first saw the house elves, having never seen such creatures, but Cedric assured her that house elves were extremely common in the wizarding world. Anna’s curiosity had consumed her and she wanted to know more, but couldn’t choose one question from the flurry in her mind, and so that conversation had died rather quickly.
Cedric held open the door disguised as a painting until Anna stepped through and they made their way up the winding steps to the entrance hall. A few students were already walking about the castle, most heading to the great hall.
The four tables that lined the room were not yet half-full. Students sat in random spots around the great hall, not sticking to their assigned house tables whatsoever. Anna and Cedric sat at the Hufflepuff table regardless. Cedric loaded his plate with eggs while Anna poured herself some tea. She looked at the food on the table but didn’t take any, even though her stomach cramped.
The great hall soon filled as more and more students came for breakfast. Anna sipped her tea slowly as Cedric ate and talked with the students that sat around them. He was quite social and had no issues talking to just about anyone. Anna, on the other hand, had never been particularly good at making friends. Her friends at All Saints didn't count, since she'd known them all her life and they were more like siblings than anything else.
Breakfast ended in a flurry of robes and a wave of bodies leaving the great hall. Anna followed the crowd but stopped at the entrance hall. She had no clue where to go for Charms class.
A tugging on her robes caught her attention. Anna turned and saw Cedric holding the sleeve of her robes, pulling her towards the sweeping staircase that would take them higher into the castle.
“C’mon, Charms is this way,” he said.
Anna followed him gratefully, knowing that if she tried to find the classroom herself she’d get hopelessly lost and miss the lesson completely.
Cedric did indeed know the way to the Charms classroom. They made it to class with a few minutes to spare, even after being delayed on one of the moving staircases.
“Told you we’d make it,” Cedric grinned at Anna. He’d been very kind and reassuring when they were caught on the staircase and she’d admittedly panicked a bit. She smiled sheepishly as they slid into a couple empty seats.
The class was already half-full and Anna spotted Theo and Patricia sitting together at the front, though they were very clearly ignoring each other. Patricia was stubbornly sporting the pointed hat that came with their school robes, though no one else was. Theo wasn’t wearing her hat, but Anna spotted a black point sticking out of her bag.
Anna and Cedric were sat near the back of the classroom. The long room was lined with three rows of desks, all of which faced the professor’s table at the far end of the room. Behind the table was a large chair and two blackboards, upon one of which was written in a neat cursive First Year Charms.
Anna tucked her school bag under her seat and set her wand down on her desk, taking care to line it up on a perfect vertical line.
Many of the students milling about the classroom were sporting the same yellow-lined robes that Anna was wearing. She recognised a few of them from the Sorting Ceremony and the times she’d passed through the Hufflepuff common room. The remaining students were wearing the blue-lined robes belonging to Ravenclaw house.
“Hey Cedric!” a boy in a yellow tie called across the room.
“Hi Henry!” Cedric called back, waving at the boy.
A few other Hufflepuffs turned and waved to Cedric and he politely returned their greetings. A bolt of jealousy stuck Anna at the easy way in which Cedric made friends. Talking to new people had never come easily to her.
Cedric leaned over the aisle between his and Anna’s seats to whisper to her. “Wonder where the professor is.”
She shrugged lamely. Her tongue felt heavy in her mouth, as it always did when she was faced with a new situation. Anna adjusted the position of her wand on the desk with shaky fingers, shifting it a millimetre this way and that, until it was back in the same position it had been in earlier.
A brown-haired boy in a blue tie ran into the room and fell into the seat on Anna’s other side. He shuffled about in his seat, hastily pulling out parchment, a quill, and an inkwell, which he set up haphazardly on his desk.
Anna’s thumb rubbed against the inner seam of her sleeve as she watched him hang his head over the back of his chair and sigh. She wanted to say something, to make friends like Cedric was doing.
She swallowed thickly and blurted out, “You alright?”
The boy twisted to look at her. He looked a bit winded and a bit exhausted. “Yeah. Got caught on the staircases,” he mumbled and sat up.
Anna chuckled, “Me too.”
The boy shot her a half-smile and opened his mouth but a rapid tapping at the front of the room interrupted him.
A long stick was poking up from behind the professor’s desk and tapping against one of the blackboards. All the students watched as the chair behind the desk slid back with a screech. A quiet grunt echoed in the room and a small man stood up on the seat of the professor’s chair.
“Good morning, class!” the man squeaked. “Please take your seats and we’ll begin.”
Everyone shuffled into their chairs and faced the front of the classroom.
“I am Professor Flitwick. I’ll be teaching you Charms, a most important skill for any witch or wizard! Among these skills is levitation, which we will practice today. Please pick up your wands and let’s practice this movement.” The professor waved his own wand—which was as long as his arm—in a swishing circle.
“Go on, everyone. Swish and flick.” Professor Flitwick demonstrated an exaggerated version of the movement, which prompted the students to follow along.
Anna picked up her wand and waved it through the air like everyone else. They did that for a short while, and the Professor checked on everyone’s wand movements, before they were told to put away their wands and take out their quills.
Anna jotted down notes as Professor Flitwick talked to them about the levitation charm, she even drew out a small diagram of the swishing wand movement that they’d practised earlier. As she was copying down the spelling of the incantation from the blackboard, the Ravenclaw boy next to her hissed.
She looked over at him and saw him desperately scrubbing his sleeve against black ink on the side of his left hand. His quill lay abandoned on the parchment, dripping slowly onto the page. His parchment was heavily smeared.
Anna pulled out a fresh roll of parchment and began copying her notes, making sure to jot down on both pages any new points that the Professor brought up.
After that, class didn’t last very much longer. They never even got to practice using the spell, Wingardium Leviosa, but Professor Flitwick promised that it would be first order of business during their next class.
“I will see you all on Wednesday. Don’t forget your wands!” Professor Flitwick called over the shuffle of papers and robes as everyone hastened to gather their things.
The Ravenclaw boy beside Anna shoved his half-dry notes into his bag without any particular care. The sharp downturn of his mouth made him look a bit too severe for an eleven-year-old.
Anna tucked her own notes away and swung the strap of her bag onto her shoulder. Cedric nudged her arm.
“Ready?” he asked.
“Yeah…give me a second though?”
He looked a bit puzzled but nodded anyway. “Sure. Meet you outside then.” He picked up his bag and followed a gaggle of other Hufflepuffs out of the classroom.
Anna tangled one hand in the sleeve of her robes and with the other slid the copy of her notes onto the Ravenclaw boy’s desk.
He went still and blinked at the roll of parchment. Anna shifted on her feet, hiding both of her hands in her sleeves now. After a moment the boy seemed to realise what the parchment was and shook his head a bit, as if to clear it, before looking up at Anna.
He opened his mouth to speak but she beat him to it.
“I just noticed that some of your notes smeared, so I made a copy,” she blurted.
He picked up the roll of parchment and, for the first time since he’d entered the classroom, smiled. He smiled so wide that his eyes crinkled.
“Thanks. That’s really nice.” He tucked the parchment, much more carefully than his own notes, into his bag.
“No problem.” Anna gave a small smile as well. “Erm, see you later!”
She bolted out of the classroom and ran into Cedric in the hall, who she promptly seized by the arm and dragged down the hall—in the wrong direction.