"Your welcome!" Wesley chirped automatically in response to the thank you.

Watching the girl curiously, she was surprised by the hand suddenly held her way. "Oh!" Wesley took and shook it with great enthusiasm, "I like your name! It's very feminine." And that was about the best compliment Wesley could bestow a name. There was nothing worse, the Hufflepuff had decided, then having a gender neutral name or a name, such as Wesley, which clearly belonged to a boy. If she could change her name she'd pick Violet, or Daffodil, or Amelia. Those were truly beautiful, feminine names.

The Hufflepuff giggled and nodded as Evelyn commented on sleep. Wesley loved sleeping almost as much as being awake. She loved burrowing under the warm covers, and she loved happy dreams. Mind momentarily drifting to the runes, safe under her pillow, Wesley refocused herself on the new girl.

Not only was Evelyn really nice, she was really pretty. Wesley wondered how long it took to brush her wavy hair. The tiny girl sat on her bed, quietly musing, when something about her fellow third year caught her eye. "Why are your robes wet?" she asked, voice void of any emotion other than innocent interest.

"Feminine!?" Evelyn giggled, "It's funny you say that, because I'm actually named after a man, Evelyn Waugh. He's my dad's favourite author or something like that. But I personally think it's a very pretty name. I hope I wear it well."

Wesley looked at Evelyn's robes and asked about them. "Oh my gosh," Evelyn looked down at her robes too, smiling and shaking her head at herself, "I was talking to someone and they made me laugh just as I was taking a sip of my cranberry juice. I spilt it all over myself." Evelyn stopped, not wanting to bore Wesley with the whole story. "So, what are you working on there? Homework? I can leave you alone if you want. I'm not someone who finds silence awkward or uncomfortable."

"Oh!" Oh dear. Wesley was not expecting that. Turning bright red, the Hufflepuff began waving her hands wildly in front of her face in a windshield wiper-like motion. "I'm sorry! I'm really, really sorry! It is pretty, and you do wear it well. I'm so sorry!"

Glad to be moving on, Wesley nodded as Evelyn talked, face sympathetic. "One time, I was practicing for my Transfiguration Final, and I made my orange juice walk into my lap. I had to take the test with a sticky skirt." She understood what it was like.

"Me? Oh!" The teenager turned around, glancing at the book she had been studying and had completely forgotten. Just looking at it made her feel sick. "Astronomy," she sighed, giving a bashful smile. "I think it's my worse class," the Hufflepuff confided in a whisper.

Wide-eyed, Wesley shook her head. "No, no, you're fine. Really. Are you all done with the assignment?" Maybe, maybe Evelyn could help her.

Evelyn blinked with surprise and she smiled. "Don't be sorry! I'm not offended. I always thought it was a very feminine name too."

"Astronomy?" Evelyn's nose was turned up with disgust. "I can't help you there. I didn't study it at my old school and I'm not planning on studying it now." Evelyn didn't often sound like such a snob, but she couldn't be Miss Nice all the time.

Wesley stared, too shocked to speak. When her brain finally kicked into gear, "Sorry," was the first word that came out of her mouth. Timidly, she looked at her book once more, face hot and feeling stupid. The Hufflepuff moved to hide it with her body.

"Where d-did you go before you c-came here?" she asked, giving a School Picture Day smile.

The 13-year-old touched her own face unconsciously, gently rubbing the tips of her fingers across her cheek, before bringing her hands down and twisting them in the fabric of her robes.

The place was so DULL. She needed colour. And she needed it RIGHT NAO.

Good job they had learned how to cunjure flowers in transfiguration then

Lucille pointed her wand at her bedside table. "Orchideous!!" Bright yellow flowers errupted from her wand and came to settle on the little table. Lucille grinned. They were pwettyful.

SHE WANTED MORE!

"Orchideous!!" She cried, pointing her wand into random areas of the dormitory. "Orchideous! Orchideous, ORCHIDEOUS!!!"

This went on for a further 5 minutes. When she had finished, Lucille looked around her.

The room was flooded in yellow flowers. Pretty, but perhaaaaps she had overdone it.

Just a tad?

Nah!

Lucille sat in the center of the new flower-pit, picked up a handfull and threw them up into the air. YAYYYY!!

"AAACHHHOOOOOOOOO!!!"

Ah. Yes. That.

Should've remembered that she was allergic to pollen. Whoops.

Jenny giggled at the fact she knew a few girly spells. Well, boys might like them too, but her mother said they were girly. "Orchideous." She said and beautiful flowers emitted across her bed. "Oops. Is there a spell for deleting things? Oh, that's right, oh wait. I have an idea! "Accio flowers!" She said and they returned to her. "Now to put them messily into this jar.." So she did that without magic. "Now, to spill them out. I don't need magic." She did that, too. "Reparo!" And they were neatly in the jar. "What was that one? Oh nevermind." She said, now setting the jar on her bedside table. She needed them to go from bright magenta to yellow. Oh, well.

"I'm from Australia," Evelyn said, in her very English accent, "Well, I grew up in Surrey but I lived in New South Wales for a few years. I was mostly home-schooled. There was school there but it only had a few teachers and it just wasn't very good. I learnt more just by helping my mum with her work. But I'm back home now. We've moved to Somerset, near where my dad grew up. Where are you from?"

As Evelyn spoke, she took off her robe and her grey cardigan and put on a salmon-red sweater instead. Anything not covered in cranberry juice.

That sure was an especially red sweater. If it hadn't been for Evelyn's tie; Wesley would have placed her in Gryffindor any day. The short brunette didn't particularly enjoy the color red. It reminded her of blood. Shuddering at the very thought, Wesley answered, "G-gloucestershire, in the Cotswolds. Right outside of...," she frowned, trying to remember the muggle village, "Edgeworth."

"What do your parent's do?" The 13-year-old asked, curious. Evelyn had said she learned more when she was working with her Mother. If Wesley had to guess, she'd say: professional potioneering. "My Father is an auditor for a quill production company in Luxembourg." The Hufflepuff would have added Mr. Lawrence's profession, but she didn't know exactly what he did.

Evelyn noticed Wesley looking down at her tie. "The colours don't really match, do they?" Evelyn laughed, "This is just the warmest jumper I have."

"Well, my dad is a history teacher at a Muggle secondary school. He even knows a lot about Wizarding history from books he's read. He's always reading. So, I got my love of history from him.

"And my mum works in Beast and Muggle correspondence. So, say, if a group of Centaurs or a village of Merpeople have a problem with what the Muggles are doing, my mum tries to sort it out. Things can get messy if you let Centaurs and Merpeople deal with Muggles. So, I got my love of magical creatures from her." Evelyn finished by taking in a deep breath.

Evelyn felt like she wasn't making a very good impression on this girl. While Evelyn was either acting crazy or being rude or babbling on about her parents, Wesley was sitting on her bed, looking almost awkward.

So Evelyn stood up and walked over to Wesley's bed, sitting down at the end of it. "So, what's the homework? Can I have a look at it? Maybe I can help." Evelyn held out her hand to take the homework, a sweet smile placed on her face.

Nina walked into the dorm room and saw people she did not know. She wanted to make friends but she was scared to talk to the other girls. Instead, she got out her potions book and began to read silently.

Arya walked into her dormitory exausted. Who knew that her days at Hogwarts would be so eventfull. As she got to her bed Perseus greeted her with an expression that said, Where have you been all day!? I missed you!Smiling at him she picked him up and sat down, placing him in her lap. Scratching behind his ears she showed him her bandaged wrist as his sniffed it curiously. "You wouldn't believe the crazy day I had Perseus..."She layed down on the bed and looked out the window thinking about the day she had.

Jenny looked up at the other first year and she said, "Hi, I'm Jenny. You have such a cute cat! What's his name? I have one..named Ella, she's probably taking a nap on my bed, she loves to do that." Jenny loved cats. She was the only one in her family with a cat.

Arya was about to doze off when she heard a girl talking to her.She slowly sat up, carefull not to wake Persesus, to see a blonde girl abour her age looking at her with some intrest. Rubbing her eyes she yawned a smile, "Hey Jenny...I'm Arya."She pointed to Perseus with her injured wrist. "And this is Perseus. He's a kneazle kitten. But I love all animals, I have a horse and dog back home."She lazily looked for Jenny's cat Ella before giving up, she would see her eventually. "So how was your day?"

So Evelyn's mother was not a potioneer; she was ten times cooler! And brave. Definitely brave. "Merpeople are scary," Wesley agreed, matter-o-factly, "They flooded this very room my first year."

Looking at Evelyn wide-eyed as the girl moved over to Wesley's bed and offered to look at her homework, the Hufflepuff adjusted her position so she was practically sitting on top of i-"OH!" Wesley suddenly shouted, jumping up and off the fourposter quickly, clutching the backside of her robe with both hands. Something felt...wet. Lifting her hands to her eyes, she bit her lip. They were black with- Wesley turned to glance at her bed- ink. Ink from an ink bottle that had spilled all over her mattress, creating a big. black. spot.

Looking at Evelyn, horrified, Wesley lifted her hands to her face, only to remember belatedly they were stained with the dark liquid. "I-ohhh," She pulled them back quickly, rubbing her face with her sleeve in an attempt to wipe off whatever ink she had gotten on it.

Jenny finally found Ella, she picked her up carefully, and heard a small meow. "Hi, Arya! Hi, Perseus!" She said softly. "I really wanted a horse, but my parents said no." She petted Ella, who was about to jump away. "Ooh, what happened to your wrist?" She suddenly eyed the injury.

Arya looked at Ella with curiosity. That cat was similar in looks to Perseus, both with green eyes and grey fur. The only diffrence was that Perseus was Gray tabby and Ella was Grey and white, she was also older than he but probably not a smart since she was just a cat. Still Arya liked her. She had almost forgotten about her wrist since she didn't move it much therefore unable to feel the pain. Picking it up carfully she turned it, remembering what had happened. When she thought about the incedent, it was pretty funny. "Umm, Me and my friends fell in the dungeons on top of each other. It was pretty painfull at first but now its fine."

Evelyn almost fell off the bed with surprise when she heard Wesley scream and jump up onto the floor. Wesley raised her hands and Evelyn could see that they were shiny and black. What did I do to her!?

Then Evelyn looked down at the bed and saw the tipped over ink bottle and the huge black stain. "I'm so sorry!"

But then Evelyn looked back to Wesley and saw two black hand prints on the sides of her face. She was desperately trying to get the ink off with the sleeve of her robe.

Evelyn was Evelyn, so she did what she always did in situations like this and laughed. "I'm sorry. I'm sorry," she choked out, "I'm not laughing at you, well, I am..." Evelyn tried to stop laughing, unsure of whether it was making Wesley feel better or worse. "Um, do you know a spell to clean this up or is there someone we need to go talk to?" Evelyn looked away from the bed and back to Wesley again. "Maybe we should go to the bathroom and get you clean first."

"Oh. I've never been to the dungeons. Wait - was that for class? Oh my gosh, I need to-...uhh..wait.." Jenny said, dropping Ella's old collar. "Oops." She picked the Slytherin-related collar and really wanted to throw it away. "Do you know a spell to make things dissapear? Like this collar?" She said.

"Nope, sorry."She shook her head slowly with her eyes closed. She looked around her bed to find Perseus resting on her pillow. Great, now there's no way for me to get to sleep.Sighing she looked back to Jenny. "I'm sure we'll learn one in class though...eventually."Studying the collar more she noticed the designs looked alot like Slyterin. "Um...do you have family in....another house?"Arya rubed her sleepy eyes and looked again at the collar. She was'nt positive that it was Slytherin, it could've been green with designs. And she didn't want to offend Jenny.

For a second, Wesley hoped that, because her face felt dry, it meant she had successfully removed the ink. But, as she stared at the black index finger she had used to test that theory, the Hufflepuff realized she was wrong.

Turning bright red, Wesley hurriedly pulled up her robes, hiding the bottom half of her face and her wobbly bottom lip which was quickly rebit before any sobs could be admitted.

She had thought- the thirteen-year-old had BELIEVED she had finally begun to mix into the crowd. No longer the shortest, Wesley believed she would fade into the background; nobody would look at her and think, "There goes that tiny first year who threw up" again. No, the Hufflepuff had finally achieved normality.

Normality that was blatantly stamped under the foot of two large smears of ink that now decorated her face like war paint.

Listening to Evelyn's laugh, Wesley's worst belief was set in stone.

"I-I d-don't know. I d-don't know w-what t-to d-d-do," she softly conceded through the fabric of her robe before nodding. Nodding to nothing but Evelyn.

Wesley was a follower. She was not a leader.

"Hey Jenny, Arya," Emily said. She walked into the dormitory and plopped down on her bed. She took out her homework, laid down on her bed and started doing it.

Arya looked over to Emily and smiled. "Hey Em, how've you been?"Stroking Perseus she leaned back on her pillow.

"Yeah, all of my family were Slytherins. My parents weren't too happy about me being in Hufflepuff, but, I love it." Jenny said. She knew Ayra was tired. "Tired? Well, I should let you go to sleep now." She yawned and headed toward her bed.

"Good," Emily said. "Just classes, I decided to wait until next year to try out for the quidditch team. Oh, and look." She pointed above her. The butterfly from Transfiguration had followed her. It was light blue with brown, black, and green flecks. "She followed me from trabsfiguration. apparently she didn't want to fly out the window. I named her Skyra."

Hmm, that's a weird name. And for a butterfly too.