The Welcome Feast
After Dumbledore had sat back down, food appeared on the platters and plates in front of Adhara. She saw a few first years at the other tables gawp at the simple magic, and she rolling her grey eyes. Looking at the food, she realised she felt starving. How long had it been since the treats on the train?
Adhara filled her plate with food, having bits of everything, except the carrots, as they looked rather mushy, and the liquorice wands. She had no clue why they were there, probably something to do with Dumbledore, but liquorice was disgusting to her.
She stayed quiet throughout most of the meal, only occasionally giving short answers to pointless questions her new house mates asked her. She recognised most of them from various pureblood event her parents had forced her to attend.
However, there were a few new faces, like that Severus boy, who was staying rather quiet like herself, and being rather rude to anyone who tried to talk to him much. There were only three other girls in first year at the table. She recognised Alecto Carrow, and of course her twin, as well as Ophelia Zabini. There was one girl she didn’t recognise, though, so she can’t have been from one of the sacred twenty-eight families. Possibly a half blood?
The polite conversation carried on around Adhara for a while, but she felt as if she was in her own separate bubble. She picked at her food, her hunger had dissipated after the first few mouthfuls. She felt a nudge at her side, and looked over at Narcissa, who was gently elbowing her. “Are you okay?” she whispered, looked down at her with concerned eyes. “Don’t worry about him, he looks fine to me.”
Adhara tried to catch a glimpse of Sirius, but he was far on the other side of the hall, and there were too many people in the way. “I can’t see him. I’m not tall enough.” She said, craning her neck to try to look over all the students. “Well trust me then, he will be fine. He’s talking to the Prewett twins, and they’re bound to cheer him up.” She said, smiling strangely fondly at the Gryffindor table.
Adhara smiled up at Narcissa, “Thank you.”
“You’re welcome.”
The short conversation had improved Adhara’s mood drastically, and she turned to talk to Ophelia, who was sat next to her. She seemed nice, and she was very pretty, with a halo of tight curls surrounding her head. She was very tall too, and seemed incredibly graceful. Adhara couldn’t stop giggling at her crude jokes, and had to stifle a huge guffaw from a comment about a third-year Ravenclaw that was sat at the table next to them, his back towards them.
Amycus and Alecto Carrow were sat opposite them, whispering to each other, and flicking peas at the Ravenclaw and Hufflepuffs. A silver form started to float up through the floor behind them, and blank, haunting eyes stared at the pair as they snickered between themselves when a pea hit a small girl’s head.
The ghost leant in towards them, his chains silently rattling. “What do you think you are doing?” He demanded. The pair violently jumped, and their heads whipped round at the same time. Alecto gawped at the silver blood that stained his front, and Amycus squeaked in alarm.
“Are you going to answer me? Or should I answer myself?” His mouth barely moved on his gaunt face as he spoke. At their silence he started to speak again, “Fine. I shall have to answer myself. You are disgracing and embarrassing your house. It is not acceptable to flick food at the other houses. This is your first day, is it not? And yet you have already embarrassed yourselves.” He slowly shook his head. “Shame. Now stop it at once or you shall be facing dire consequences. Understood?”
The nodded mutely. “Good.” He said and floated towards some of the older students. The twins faced back towards the table, scowling. Adhara snorted at the looks on their face, and decided that, although his initial appearance was startling, the ghost seemed alright.
She turned to Narcissa, nudged her, and asked, “Who was that ghost?”
“Hm? Oh, that’s the Bloody Baron, Slytherin’s ghost.”
“Cool. I don’t think he’s mentioned in Hogwarts: A History.”
“He is, but only a footnote.”
“Oh, right.” Adhara responded, her eyebrow furrowing slightly. She always forgot how clever Narcissa was, as she was quite quiet, and only answered questions she was directly asked most of the time.
Long after Adhara had finished eating, the food faded from the plates, and they were left clean once more, until they were filled with more different types of dessert than Adhara could imagine. She was completely stuffed, despite having only eaten half her plate of food, until she saw the apple crumble.
She scooped a huge piece onto her plate and drowned in in custard. It was probably one of the best things she had ever tasted, exactly how she loved it most. After she had finished it, she thought she might be sick, but she still managed to eat a brownie, and some salted caramel ice cream, which competed with the apple crumble for best-food-ever.
Unable to eat any more, she sat back and talked to Ophelia again. Their conversation had turned to classes, and what they were most looking forward to. Ophelia said Charms, and Adhara agreed, but thought Potions and Transfiguration also sounded great.
They both agreed that History of Magic needed a good teacher to be interesting, but Narcissa had heard their conversation, and told them he was one of the dullest people she had ever been unfortunate enough to meet.
The girl that Adhara didn’t recognise was sitting right at the end of the table, on the other side of Ophelia. She was stunningly pretty, with sleek long blonde hair that seemed to glow, a small button nose, and pouty red lips. Adhara hadn’t heard her say a single thing the whole mealtime, and wondered what her name was.
Thinking she looked quite lonely, Adhara leant over Ophelia, and asked her name. “My name is Elodie Laurent. What is your name?” She had a light French accent, and her voice sounded very gentle and shy. “I am Adhara, and this is Ophelia.” Ophelia beamed at her.
“I love your hair! It’s so shiny, what conditioner do you use?” Ophelia said, still widely smiling. Elodie smiled back, showing perfectly straight, white teeth. “It is one from France, you can borrow it if you would like, I expect we will all be sharing a dormitory.” She waved a slim hand vaguely at them and Alecto, who was stuffing her face with chocolate chip cookies.
“Oh yeah! I forgot about that! Oooo that’s so exciting I’ve never shared a room with anyone before!” Ophelia said excitedly.
“Ugh, I had to share a room with my sister, Apolline, before she went off to Beauxbatons, back in France. It was so annoying.” Elodie said, rolling her big blue eyes. “I don’t want to be rude, and you don’t have to talk about it, but how come you aren’t at Beauxbatons?” Ophelia asked.
“Oh, that’s nothing sensitive, it’s just because my mother wants me to improve my English, and I didn’t want to go to the same school as my sister. I was going to go to Ilvermony, but my father decided I couldn’t, because it’s too far away.”
“Well, after only talking to you for two minutes, I can say I’m glad you’re at this school.” Adhara said, smiling. Shyly smiling back, Elodie said, “Thank you… I wasn’t sure if I would make any friends. I never really have before.”
“Yay! We can be your first two friends then!” Ophelia said.
Almost everyone had finished eating now, and Adhara was starting to feel tired. The puddings were starting to disappear, like the main courses had, and after they had all gone, Dumbledore stood up, and coughed.
“Now that we have all finished eating, I have a few notices and thing to tell you. Firstly, a reminder the Forbidden Forest is completely forbidden. It’s in the name.” He looked straight over at the Gryffindor table when he said this, where Adhara could just about see two red-haired boys looking deeply offended.
“Also, Quidditch try-outs will be next weekend. Please inform Madame Hooch if you are interested in playing for your house team. Last but certainly not least, a rare Whomping Willow tree has been planted by Professor Sprout for her seventh year class project. This is a very rare and dangerous tree, so no one is permitted to go near it.” He looked genuinely serious as he spoke, his eyes roving over the students.
“Now!” He clapped his hand together, suddenly cheerful again, “Time for the school song. Pick a tune, and sing!” Adhara looked confused and frowned over at Ophelia and Elodie. A mess of different voices, pitches and notes began. Adhara stayed quiet looked around the hall in confusion. It sounded awful. Dumbledore must be clinically insane.
Most people had finished, except the Prewett twins who were singing opera-style surprisingly well, and Sirius and James, the boy from the boat, were stood with their arms wrapped around each other’s shoulders. They were singing in the lowest voices they could, in the slowest tune they could.
Adhara was shocked at first, but started snickering underneath her breath. Ophelia and Elodie were laughing too, and Severus looked at them with such disgust, anyone would have thought the pair to be slugs, not humans.
Once they had all finally finished and sat back down, Dumbledore laughed and started applauding everyone. “Right then, off to bed, I think. Get lots of rest, ready for a busy day of lessons tomorrow. Pip-pip!”
It can’t have been that late, but Adhara was exhausted and completely ready to go to sleep. However, when she stood up to follow after Narcissa with the other first-years, she remembered she and Sirius needed to talk to McGonagall about their fight.
She told Narcissa this, and she scolded her slightly, but said McGonagall would do a good enough job of that for her. Adhara looked around the room for her brother, and saw him with James still. She walked through the crowds of students towards him.
“Sirius, we’ve got to go and talk to Professor McGonagall, remember?” She said when she approached him. “Adhara! Hello again!” James said cheerily, “Me and your brother are best friends now, so you’re basically my sister-in-law!”
“Uhh, I don’t think that’s quite how it works. Anyway, come on Sirius, let’s go.”
“Bye James! See you later!”
They walked out in silence, until Adhara asked, “Why did the hat put you in Gryffindor?”
“I don’t know.” He said quietly, looking at the stone floor.
“You know mother and father are going to find out.” She said, trying to be sound gentle.
“I know.” He said shortly.
“It will be okay, don’t worry.”
“Yeah. Maybe.” He didn’t sound at all convinced, but neither was she.
They stopped outside the door, standing to the side, out the way of the steady stream of students pouring out the double doors. Most people had gone when McGonagall came out. Adhara had noticed how tired Sirius looked, and thought she probably looked the same as she yawned.
“Right you two. As it is so late, I have decided to just give you a detention, set for next Monday. However, you must remember that you are now at a school, and will be treated like adults, so if there are any more instances like this one, there will be much more serious consequences, Do you understand?”
“Yes, Professor.” They chorused. “Now Sirius, if you would follow me in a minute, I will show you to your dormitory, and Adhara, I will fetch Professor Slughorn so he can show you to yours.” She went back into the Great Hall, and came out two minutes later with a rather large man, who Adhara assumed was Professor Slughorn.
“Ah, you two must be the Black twins. I would have liked to have both of you in my house, but no matter, I can share with Minerva, here. Never have known a Black to be in Gryffindor though. Very unusual. Shall we be off then? I’m exhausted, always am after eating a big meal.” He said, patting his pot belly.
Slughorn walked incredibly slowly, waddling along down winding corridors and stairs. Finally, they reached the ornate door of the Slytherin common room. “Hmmm, what was the password again? …Salazar? Pureblood? Parseltongue? Hmph… I can’t remember… Oh! I know! Draught of Living Death!”
The two carved snakes on the door slithered over the door and curled around the pillars either side of it, and the door opened. “It’s usually something to do with potions, as that’s the subject I teach. In fact, I’ll probably be seeing you in class tomorrow with the Gryffindors. Well, I’d better be off. Goodnight Miss Black.”