Hufflepuff Table

Hufflepuff Table

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The Hufflepuff table is situated between Gryffindor on the right and Ravenclaw on the left, though there is a wide space between Hufflepuff and Ravenclaw due to the aisle to the Staff Table.

The third time she sat here on the first of September, but the first time she wasn't beaming. Maevie tried to put the genuineness back into her smile, tried to follow the other's conversations but it was hard. Her heart wasn't in it this time.

Most of the train ride she had spent with her housemates. At least the ones that hadn't sneered at her for some reason. She couldn't tell if they'd always done that and she just hadn't ever noticed, or if they somehow knew what she'd done over the summer and felt the same kind of disgust she felt too. She had pretended she hadn't seen.

And then a queasiness had settled low in her stomach, the moment Maevie had gotten off the train and her gaze had fallen onto the towering, window-lit castle in the distance. A sight that had almost lifted her off the ground the past two years she'd seen it, and that now looked like guilt, shame and sorrow wrapped in magic.

For the first time coming to Hogwarts, she wasn't on the brim of explosion with excitement, but crawling on the inside.

The noise of the Great Hall rose and fell like it always did. Bursts of laughter, squeals of friends reuniting after a summer apart, jovial, elated, happy. She felt like an island within a sea.

Because summer had been great until it hadn't.

Her night terrors had almost all but stopped, sleep as easy as she remembered it from before. She had visited her brother in London with her mum, had done all the sightseeing, had even gone to a cinema. Things had calmed in her head, the memories of the tower just a faint glimmer at the back of her mind, there but almost harmless.

And then she had gone to St. Mungo's. To Ever, to her friend. To see her, give her the bracelet she had spent close to an hour picking out. It had been so long then, Maevie had thought Ever would be better, that they could talk about what they'd do when she finally came back to school.

She hadn't been better though, she had been barely recognizable.

And then Maevie had made it worse.

A twinge twisted her stomach and she dropped her eyes to the bracelet still intact, still hugged around her wrist. Absentmindedly she stroked the glass beads, twisting them between thumb and forefinger.

It was a losing battle from the start.

Rae had done everything she could to drag Benji over to the Ravenclaw table, insisting they needed to offer some amount of comfort to his obviously petrified little sister. It wasn't a secret that Kathryn didn't like change, and it was easy to imagine her being overwhelmed now that she was no longer staying up in Julia's room but a part of these large, loud and lavish feasts herself.

Rae could still remember her own sorting and the distress that had clung to her. It was only right they try to be there for her.

Benji-The-Most-Impossible-Boy-In-The-World had other ideas. He'd grabbed her by the wrist and wrangled her back into her seat the moment Kate was sorted and she'd tried to drag him to her. He thought the poor girl needed to learn how to adjust, and while she didn't disagree – they couldn't very well have the girl be WEAK – the first night, when everything could appear so new and terrifying, hardly seemed the time. Looking back, she'd have given anything to know Elliot or Rocio that first night and to have some comfort while she sorted through the big and overwhelming emotions.

Benji wanted his sister to drown while they sat merrily at the Hufflepuff table pretending the girl wasn't seconds from a silent meltdown.

"Neither of us is in the towers. Sitting with her until she has to go is the least we could've done. No, you'd rather sit here and let Kaitlyn get cosy with your sister. They're not going to be friends, Benji. If you think the way to reconciliation is through Kate, you've got another think coming, Laurence. I'll push her down the stairs again."

Poor Kathryn.

Glancing across the table, Rae spotted another not-so-happy feast attendee. Little Maevie Golding. Well, not so little anymore. The once adorable first year now looked like she was transforming into a fully moody teenager. She would fit right in amongst the ranks of many within the castle.

"What's got you looking like Santa cancelled Christmas? It's only the first night back." And while Rae wasn't the biggest fan of Hogwarts, her summers were only getting worse and worse. The girl was at the point where she'd prefer to simply remain at the castle and deal with its predictable problems.

"Anything your handy prefect here can handle?" she asked, offering her boyfriend up.

Alice was torn. She didn’t want to be back at Hogwarts, especially since her sister wasn’t there. But at the same time, she was hoping for some normalcy. She wouldn’t have to deal with betrothals or the health of her sister. She was confident that the healers at St. Mungo’s were doing the best they could for her, but honestly… would that be enough? Alice had been, up until now, extra optimistic about Everleigh.

The longer that her sister went on without any real big breakthroughs though, that optimism was making way for pessimism but she told herself that she just had to be realistic. So realism is where she was settling.

That said, Alice felt… a lot when she entered the Great Hall. She looked immediately at the Ravenclaw table where Everleigh should be but was not before making her way to the Hufflepuff table. She frowned when she saw little Maevie there. The girl was her sister’s friend – one of the ones who had been kidnapped too – and who had actually stayed in contact.

Everleigh didn’t have very many friends, but Maevie was one.

In a way, Alice could see herself taking the young badger under her wing. The girl had been through a lot too. She needed people in her corner.

Alice sat down next to the girl, smiling a bit despite herself. She could feel melancholy radiating off the girl in waves. She spotted the bracelet she was playing with, which made her think of something the healers had told her. And shown her.

“That’s pretty,” she commented softly, almost relieved that Maevie’s melancholy felt familiar to her. Like an old friend.