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Pandora was so happy, they were finally going to Hogwarts.
It was a small boarding school located up in the hills of Scotland. There wasn’t much in the surrounding area but it was nice. Unfortunately, there were shared dorm rooms. Luckily, it was a small school so there were only around 3 rooms per school year per house with 4 people in a room. Around 300 students in the school.
Pandora had been placed into Ravenclaw, apparently the house for those who thirst for knowledge, or as others called it ‘the nerds’. She shared a room with a blonde Vietnamese girl named Marlene McKinnon, a brunette named Emmeline Vance and a ginger boy named Gideon Prewtett.
Before Hogwarts, she had been living with her single father, traveling across Europe for his job. She was tutored at home in private so she wasn’t exactly used to the people yet. She also hadn’t come to school with pre-existing friends, as many of the others did. Pandora assumed that going to boarding school would be a break from their hectic traveling life. Maybe she’d get a couple of friends and they’d be able to hang out and relax. She was wrong. Mostly.
In her second month at school Pandora was walking down the hall toward her arts class, it was across the school from where her dorm was and it was first period so, naturally, she was in a hurry.
As she turned a corner leading to the Art wing she collided with a body and fell back. “Watch it, first year!” came a voice from above her
She looked up to see a girl with wild black hair sneering down at her. Bellatrix. She is a fifth year Slytherin. Everyone knows to stay out of her way. She was a movie bully who came to life, pushing the kids younger than her and stuffing them into cupboards and closets. She even had her goons behind her. Narcissa, her sister and Lucius, her future brother in law.
Something of a crowd began to form, fifth years coming out of their designated Arts class and first year coming to theirs. Everyone was eager to see who Bellatrix's next victim was. Who they had to avoid.
“What is this? Who wears berets anymore, little girl?” Bellatrix said, leaning down to pluck it off her head. “Honestly, you think you're special or something? That you could be someone's French girl?” Bellatrix mocked, faking an accent, laughing at her own insults, Narcissa and Lucius following along.
Before Pandora could retort or even stand up, either to get her beret or just walk to her class, there were four small black and green blurs rushing through the crowd and into Bellatrix, Narcissa and Lucius.
A smile crept on Pandora’s face. There are my friends.
Regulus Black. He was my first friend at Hogwarts. We have French and Maths together. After the first week we decided to all sit together and it bore friendship. After a few days he introduced me to his dormmates and the rest was history.
Barty Crouch. He is the friend you go to when you need cheering up. Either way of pulling a prank or just listening to them ramble on and on about whatever topic catches his fancy. He was always open for causing distraction.
Evan Rosier. He is the ‘sane’ one of our friend group. Not to be confused with the boring or studious one, no, he was always down for some good fun just more along the lines of playing a game or having a photo shoot rather than pranking the Headmaster’s office to flood with water. We bonded over exasperation of the other three’s ideas.
Dorcus Meadows. She’s the only girl in their dorm. How she deals with them 24/7 I’ll never know. While Regulus, Barty or Evan were the type to insult you in twisty, confusing phrases, so as you aren’t even aware you're being slighted, she was more the type to look you in the eye and tell you everything that was wrong with you, head to toe.
There were more gasps from the crowd around them. People peering over their friends' shoulders trying to see who were the four people that just barreled into the trio who fancied themselves the rulers of the school.
Dorcas was grabbing Lucius’ hair and dragging him down with it knowing how much he loved and would protect his precious mane. Evan was dealing with Narcissa, pushing her down and into the crowd. They took out any sort of backup Bellatrix might have had.
Barty had immediately rushed for Bellatrix and Regulus started wrestling the beret away from where it was still held in her hand.
With the trio all caught off guard by the smaller kids rushing them, the three were easy to push over and the beret, easy to steal back. Amongst the chaos, Pandora stood back up to go to their friends.
Just as their hand reached for the hand a door banged open down the hall. “Just what is going on here?” seemed to echo in the hallway. Students in the crowd started to peel away in hopes of escaping.
Lucius spoke first, his hair still held tight in Dorcas’ grip. “These little hooligans ran at us, for no reason, Professor McGonagall. I’d recommend you punish them severely, maybe detention for a month.” With the teacher in sight he seemed much more confident, he was a fifth year, a good student and had very influential parents.
“Oh really, Mr. Malfoy? Well, we’ll just have to see what everybody ought to say about this spectacle you’ve put on for all of us.” Her face was stern as she looked over the eight of us, undoubtedly taking us all in. Wrinkled uniforms, mussed up hair and of course the now slightly wrinkled beret.
“Everyone, get to your classes. You eight will be heading with me to my office.”
Finally, McGonagall got what happened, from a mixture of what we all told her and what the students told her. Even with the recent fight and undoubtedly punishment, nobody was lining up to get on Bellatrix’s bad side. Still, it was understood that there were too many bystanders for the Professor to not know what transpired eventually so they told the truth, plus no one actually believed that five first years would start something with fifth years.
Pandora’s friends were all assigned detention for 2 weeks spent helping teachers wherever needed. Bellatrix, Narcissa and Lucius had Malfoys suggested punishment; one month detention every night, cleaning up in classrooms.
Once they all finally left the room, hours having passed and lunch time nearing, McGonagall called Pandora back into the office.
“Your beret, my dear.” She nodded her head to the hat laying innocently on the desk.
“Thank you.” Pandora said as she walked out and joined her friends who had waited outside for her. The eldest three had disappeared, probably off to their dorms to brood for a bit.
“Come on, let's go to the great hall, I’m starved” Barty groaned as he pushed himself off the wall he’d been leaning on.
“Yes, we know Barty, you’ve only said so 5 times,” Evan replied with a roll of his blue eyes. Still we began to walk to the great hall.
Once there we sat together, after some careful reading of the rules, a month ago, we discovered that we don't have to sit with our houses, it's only encouraged. Since then we’d all moved to the Ravenclaw table. It was more welcoming than the Slytherin.
After food had been served and eaten, lunch then moved more towards the talking side of it. Pandora spoke up. “Thank you guys for the help earlier.”
They all adopted a look that said of course we helped you, duh . Regulus responded, “You’re our friend, we aren’t going to allow some older kids to bully you, you’re one of us.”
“Yea, what the Frenchie said” Dorcas replied. Evan nodded along with her.
Barty pulled her into an overly tight hug with one arm and with the other hand took off the beret for a second to muss up her hair before placing it back down over. “You can’t get rid of us anymore, we’re stuck together.”
Pandora smiled and silently marveled at the friends she managed to make in just a few months at school, she had no doubt that she had found the friends for the rest of her schooling, and hopefully her life.
And if Pandora makes sure she wears that specific beret most often and that when she does it reminds her of the safety her friends make her feel, even at the beginning of their friendship, then that sentiment can stay with her.