school has started
When Marlene woke up, her roommates were already very busy preparing for their first day of school. Mary, who was already completely dressed in her school uniform, saw her roommate being awake and immediately scolded her for being ‘such a sleepyhead’. Dorcas and Lily giggled at that, but Marlene just grumbled and tried to go back to sleep. That was until Lily pointed out that breakfast started in 20 minutes, which made the blonde-haired girl jump up and run to find her robes.
During breakfast the second-years they saw sitting by the fireplace yesterday began to talk to Dorcas and Marlene. “So, how do you guys like Hogwarts so far?” asked a boy with freckles and glasses, who later introduced himself as Frank. “It’s amazing!” the two girls exclaimed. Both of them just kept rambling about all of the amazing aspects of the school they had seen on their first day. Frank and the curly-haired girl, who’s name Marlene didn’t know yet, also told them about some of their experiences at school.
Then breakfast was over. Their new twelve-year-old friends wished Marlene and Dorcas good luck on their first day of school, before walking off to their first class of the day. The first-year Gryffindors had to find the Charms classroom, which took a while because the school was very big and chaotic. Once they’d found the classroom, they were greeted by a very small man with a moustache. Today, they learned a spell that made objects fly. Most of the students struggled for a while, but one boy, Remus Lupin, got it pretty quickly. He looked quite proud, and so did his friends. By the end of the class about half of the students, including Mary and Dorcas, had managed to make a feather fly. The teacher, professor Flitwick, assured the other half of the class that it was completely normal not to master a spell after only one hour.
Marlene’s next class was Defence Against the Dark Arts. Their professor was a bit stupid and kept forgetting what he wanted to say. Marlene did find the class itself quite interesting, as did her classmate with ridiculously big glasses, James Potter, and the both of them seemed to be very good at DADA. After both of them couldn’t master the spell in their previous class, this gave them a really big confidence boost. Although Marlene didn’t think Potter’s confidence needed boosting.
At lunch, James and Marlene chatted a lot, mostly about the two classes they had already had today. In the meantime, Dorcas caught up with Frank and his friend, who really seemed to like Dorcas. After lunch, the Gryffindor first-years had two hours of Transfiguration, taught to them by a strict but kind woman. James and Sirius were amazing at this subject, but they talked so much that the professor still didn’t really like them.
After school everyone went to study or hang out with their friends. Mary and Lily went to find Severus Snape, Lily’s friend in Slytherin, and Dorcas played a game called ‘exploding snap’ with Frank and the curly-haired girl who was apparently named Alice.
Just as Marlene was about to step on the staircase to her room, she heard someone calling her name. It was James, who was standing next to Remus Lupin. “Marlene! Remus wants to help us with the flying charm!” So Marlene followed them to the boys bedroom. She was quite surprised she could enter it, because Frank had told her it was practically impossible for boys to enter the girls bedroom.
The afternoon was a lot of fun. Remus was a good teacher so after about half an hour both James and Marlene had mastered the spell. After that, they began making random objects in the room fly, until Peter Pettigrew entered the room and got hit in the face by a flying shoe.
When Marlene told her roommates she had been in the boys bedroom, everyone but mainly Mary was giggling. “Well well well McKinnon,” Mary said, “didn’t think you’d be the first one here to be popular with the boys.” “We’re just friends,” Marlene protested. She didn’t really care about having a boyfriend and everything. Sure that was normal at her age, right?
Mary continued talking about Marlene and James, which eventually turned into telling Marlene how much she had yet to learn about boys. As if she was the biggest expert in the world or something. At some point Marlene was so done with the other girl that she closed her bed’s curtains and went to sleep, just like Lily and Dorcas had done a while ago.
In the middle of the night, Marlene was woken up by the sound of a girl crying. It came from the bed on the other side of the room, Mary’s bed. Marlene tiptoed past the other two beds and whispered: “Hey, are you okay?” “No, I miss ho-home so m-much,” Mary sobbed. “Can I give you a hug?” Marlene asked. The other girl looked surprised at first but then nodded. Marlene sat down on her bed and wrapped her arms around her. For a few minutes they just sat like that, Mary sobbing into her roommates’ shoulder and Marlene hugging her.
Eventually, Mary calmed down a bit. She told the other girl about how she missed her parents and friends from home. Apparently she was also really jealous of Marlene and how quickly she’d made friends with people. That’s why she wasn’t that nice to her. “I’m so sorry about that Marlene, you’re a great person and I’m happy for you” “It’s okay,” Marlene said, “I know it's hard meeting new people. But if you’re nice to people I’m sure they’ll like you.”
After a while, Marlene went back to her own bed. Just as she was halfway through the bedroom she heard a whisper. “Marlene?” “Yeah? “Thank you.” Marlene smiled. Maybe this girl wasn’t as bad as she thought.