A First Day Intro open

Donald walked into the History of Magic classroom and a grin lit up against his face. While he thought that Defense Against the Dark Arts was going to be his favorite class, the textbook still made too many references to the wizarding world, it was certainly not written for a muggle-born to just pick up and read. On the Hogwarts Express, Colin and Charlie warned him that pronouncing something wrong would have dire consequences (that may even include losing one’s tongue)! Luckily, there were very few ways mispronouncing a word from a history textbook could end in disaster; as long as it didn’t manage to repeat itself of course. Donald had read the first few chapters of History of Magic already, he did enjoy learning about muggle wars and all that kind of stuff back home, but there was something different about magical history. How could all these events have been taken place without muggles learning about them? He guessed the same way that there were plants and animals he had never seen. Of course, his interest in the textbook was quickly sparked by the mention of The Witch Hunt Era in the index. Understandably, Bathilda Bagshot was not very kind to the hunters of the past. She did not list one dark witch or wizard successfully dispatched by a muggle witch-hunter though according to his father, the McCollums alone had defeated several. Perhaps you could tell a lot about history by what didn’t make it into the texts just as much as by what did.

Most of the Slytherin section had filled up quickly in the classroom and Donald wasn’t sure if he wanted to sit with them anyway. While he was ecstatic that two of his friends from the train both got sorted into the same house as him, and they didn’t judge him based on his nonmagical heritage, there were still some Slytherin kids who took traditions too seriously. None of them had outright said anything nasty to him, but he could feel their snickers and sensed the snide remarks they said to each other about him. Whispers were uttered as he walked right past their table and took a seat in an empty chair to the right of a girl who just finished brushing her hair and putting it back into a bun. He gently pulled out his seat and sat his textbook on the desk as well as his quill, ink, and parchment. There was another empty seat to his right and he hoped that one of his other friends might have this class as well.

“Hello,” he said to the girl sitting next to him; he only vaguely remembered seeing her at the Sorting Hat Ceremony. “I’m Donald, nice to meet you. What’s your name?”

@Athena McClenin

Colin was excited for History of Magic class to begin. He'd always loved reading about battles and adventurers and the doings of queens and kings and knights and heroes of the past. This morning he was particularly excited since he'd just discovered that you can actually talk with the portraits that hung all over the castle! He'd just been chatting with the portrait of Seraphina Bones when he realised he was almost very nearly late for class!

With a quick goodbye, Colin tore off down the corridor at a full gallop. He dodged around several older students, ducking under several outstretched arms seeking to grab his robes or else slyly extended feet seeking to trip him up. He laughed merrily at each escape! His only hope was that no prefects or teachers would catch him! He charged around the last corner and into the open doorway of the History classroom and skidded to a halt between the two great files of desks.

He took a quick look to one side. Slytherins, mostly. He made a gross face at a couple of the girls who'd gotten on his nerves already. Then to the other side. The Ravenclaw side. The side he so wished he could be on with their blue trimmed robes and ties rather than his own Slytherin green. He sighed. Liam wasn't in this class either. Colin wondered if he'd ever see his brother again.

He caught sight of Donald sitting on the Ravenclaw side and there was an empty seat next to him, just beckoning to be occupied. A friendly face --- that made Colin smile! And so with his back turned to the Slytherins he walked over to the Ravenclaw side, tried --- and failed --- to push his messy hair to one side or the other and sat down next to Donald. He nodded to Ravenclaw girl as he did so.

"Hey, Douglas!" he said, then laughed. "I mean Donald, of course! I'm glad you're in this class," he said. He turned his attention back to his satchel, which he dumped out on his desk. He pawed through it, finding at last his history book, some grubby parchments for notes and ink and quill.

"I really wish I could just use a pencil to write. Or one of those spiffy muggle quills," he said as he shoved the unneeded stuff back into his satchel and slung the bag from the back of his chair. He rolled up his sleeves, rotated the parchment about 100 degrees widdershins, then curled his left hand around like an awkward snail shell and began to write the topic and date starting in what looked like the lower left corner of the page.



@Donald McCollum | @Athena McClenin

☛ A Second day ☚
╔══════ ∘◦ ✾ ◦∘ ═══════╗
⠀⠀⠀⠀∘Athena McClenin∘
Hufflepuff ◦ 1st year ◦ She/her
╚══════ ∘◦ ❈ ◦∘ ═══════╝

“Hello,” he said to the girl sitting next to him; he only vaguely remembered seeing her at the Sorting Hat Ceremony. “I’m Donald, nice to meet you. What’s your name?”

Athena smiled politely,
“Hi, I’m Athena!” She followed his gaze to the Ravenclaws sitting in clusters at the other tables and sighed. “Do you ever wish—I dunno—you were in Ravenclaw.”
Athena dreamed about fitting in with some Ravenclaw nerds and not being so ‘nerdy’. She stared at the books they shared with each other and looked at her single book, ‘Hogwarts, a history.’ She looked down at her yellow robes and thought about what most people called Hufflepuff. ‘The extra house’ they would always say. She wasn’t extra, she was smart and kind and awesome. Athena looked at the Slytherin who had sat by her. She saw the firm line his lips formed and blurted out,
“Are you muggle born? I mean no offense. Oh and muggle means human here and—“
Athena cut herself off short, clearly embarrassed. No offense her usually tan cheeks brightened to a pink and she closed her eyes.
She spotted the already bookmarked book and asked, “do you like to read? I sure do, it’s been my hobby ever since I was little!”
She motioned to her book. “This is what I’m reading right now, Hogwarts a history!”
The cover was a crimson red with gold cursive lettering splayed across the top.

Donald’s smile brightened as he realized that the one other empty seat would be taken by his friend Colin. He made a joke about calling him Douglas on the train and put enough comical emphasis on it that Donald couldn’t help but chuckle. “Shut up Colin,” he joked back, nudging his friend’s shoulder lightly with a fist.

Athena seemed like a pleasant girl to Donald. She was very polite in asking him if he had already started reading his textbook and showed her own History of Hogwarts that she had been working on. She also asked if he was muggle-born which made Donald realize that he was probably going to have to explain that to everyone he met in the wizarding world. Bloodlines were far more important than he anticipated.

“Yeah,” Donald answered. “I’m muggle-born, but I don’t think that makes anyone here different from a human. Our biology can’t be that different from a nonmagical person… can it?” Donald realized that he wasn’t sure about that, maybe there were at least subtle differences in the way a muggle and a wizard’s body functioned; that could explain why everything in their world was so gobsmackingly dangerous! “Honestly there was only one house I didn’t want to be placed in,” Donald looked over at the Gryffindor section of the class and cracked his knuckles without thinking, glaring at them slightly though none at that table really deserved it. “I wasn’t expecting people to care so much about my parentage, and I definitely wish all of my own house didn’t already know. Colin here is a notable exception of course, but some of the Slytherins still agree with old Salazar about people like me.” Athena asked him if he liked to read, “I’ve taken quite a liking to this book,” Donald flipped through the pages a bit to show her, some notes were scrawled into the sections on Witch Hunts but he made sure to skip through those parts so his classmates wouldn’t see. “The part about gargoyles was really interesting, I might want to petition for my own sentient object some day just because they purposefully made it so difficult.”

@Athena McClenin @Colin McCoire

☛ A First day Intro ☚
╔══════ ∘◦ ✾ ◦∘ ═══════╗
⠀⠀⠀⠀∘Athena McClenin∘
Hufflepuff ◦ 1st year ◦ She/her
╚══════ ∘◦ ❈ ◦∘ ═══════╝

“Yeah,” Donald answered. “I’m muggle-born, but I don’t think that makes anyone here different from a human. Our biology can’t be that different from a nonmagical person… can it?” Donald

“it doesn’t really matter—just ask me if you have any problems with the words,” Athena scratched her head and grinned. “it can be really confusing.”
Athena looked through his books and grinned. Her eyes scanned the pages fast as lightning and she soon tuned everything else out. When she was done she looked back up with a massive grin on her face.
“lend me this when your done, would you?” Athena watched as he glared at the Gryffindors and secretly chuckled.
“Gryffindors and the Slytherins are always fighting—it’s just the way of hogwarts.” Athena looked at his green robes and raised an eyebrow. “I’m guesssing they don’t accept you much in your house—the norm is pure bloods in the house.” Athena thought of her own house and sighed heavily. “But at least the other houses aren’t the ‘extra’ house” The heavy frown on Athena’s face quickly was only noticeable for a moment before she masked her face again. Her pinched eyebrows separated and she grinned. “Introduce me to your friend!”

"Sure, I'll lend you my copy if you misplaced yours," Donald told her kindly, not wanting his annotations to be discovered. "Pretty sure it was on the required reading list, but you can look on with me for the first couple of chapters."

"That might be the one thing I get on with most of my housemates about," everything about the Gryffindor kids made Donald's stomach churn. The only thing different about them than the Slytherin kids were their attention to bloodline from what he could tell so far. "Why is Hufflepuff called the 'extra' house though? I think you mentioned that you wanted to get sorted into Ravenclaw, what's so much better about that one?"

Donald felt his palm reach his face as Athena reminded him that he hadn't introduced Colin yet. He had just figured that his new friend was someone that everyone already met somehow. He was very loud, but in a fun way.

"Right of course, where are my manners?" he asked aloud to himself. "This is..." one side of his lip pulled upward into a barely noticeable smirk. "Why, this is my good mate, Carl of course!"

It was not easy for Donald to keep a straight face, but payback was payback and he figured that would show Colin for getting his name wrong before... well probably just get him to laugh.

@Colin McCoire @Athena McClenin

Colin laughed as Donald punched his shoulder and told him to shut it. Donald turned back to the girl he was chatting with before Colin got to class. He struggled a little more with curling his left hand around like a snail to write, then decided to try turning the parchment sunwise to see if that were any better. Not really. He now had to bend his hand around the other way, like a shillelagh knob. "Bloody hell! I wish they just made a proper left handed quill!"

He hadn't paid much attention to the conversation at first, but he did once he noticed that the girl seemed to be devouring Donald's book with her eyes. What's up with that? Doesn't she have her own book? "Girls are so weird," he whispered.

Then they started talking about the ancient and great rivalry Slytherin and Gryffindor had between the two houses. Colin thought it was grand! It wasn't that he hated Gryffindors or anything --- more that he really disliked most of the Slytherins he'd come across --- but at least the rivalry kept a lot of suspicious eyes off of himself! "Pff. Gryffindor," he muttered. "Even that would have been better than Slytherin."

Colin's mind turned back the way the girl had looked at Donald's book. Sure she can write notes in hew own book, just like Donald did, right? And then she can read those, right? And that grin on her face? Suspicious!

He didn't even realise that Donald had turned towards him. "...my good mate, Carl of course!"

Colin blinked. He focused on Donald's smirking face. He turned in his seat suddenly --- "Who's Carl ---? Wait ---!"

He turned back and narrowed his eyes at Donald. "Donald! You're such a prat!" But he smiled as he said it and playfully returned the other boy's shoulder punch. Hadn't he just called him 'Douglas'? He looked around Donald then raised his eyebrow. "Well? --- So, who's she? She looks like she just memorised your history book!"

@Donald McCollum | @Athena McClenin

Colin asked Donald who the girl was that he was sitting next to, but he was flustered by his joke of calling him a different name. He was right that it would show him.

"This is Athena, she was sorted into Hufflepuff but fancies Ravenclaw," Donald shrugged. Carl here," the inflection in his voice was over the top and clearly in further jest at the expense of his friend. "Carl's got himself into Slytherin just like I have; same dorm and everything," He gave another sour look toward the Gryffindor section and started to crumple up a piece of scrap paper from a composition notebook.

His anger at these random kids was definitely unwarranted, and Donald might have known that despite his age, but that didn't stop him from throwing the crumpled-up piece of paper at the back of the head of one of the Gryffindor students. With the precision of an athletic boy who played muggle sports all his life, the paper struck right in the center of its target.

As the angry attention turned to glare at their table, Donald ducked down slightly, pointing at Athena. “She did it,” he muttered softly. As he was making his motions, the textbook that he had been perusing through and annotating blew open to the page it had been setting on the most: The Witch Hunt Era. There was a note roughly scrawled into the page that read, 'No mention of McCollum witch-hunters.' Athena and Colin would both be able to read if they weren't too distracted by Donald's little stunt.

@Athena McClenin @Colin McCoire

Charlie had managed to sneak her way into the classroom, carrying an arm full of books and her bag slung over her shoulder. Already feeling like she was late the room seemed to pack up rather fast. She looked around quickly for an empty seat,as she sat down and faced the front of the class no sooner was she hit in the back of the head with something.

Turning around she noticed Donald and Colin, her eyes flicking between one then the other before landing on the girl sitting beside him. Then noticing the way Donald ducked down to avoid being seen and pointing at the girl, made her squint her eyes in anger and frustration, mouthing her words, "Really Donald??".

Shaking her head she turned back around, crossing her arms in a huff as she turned her focus on the front of the class, her robes were those of typical Gryffindor fashion and she had sat with the rest of her housemates, not even seeing her friends when she came through the door clearly too focused on not missing anything.

She stole another look over at them before she fully settled in, the look of anger having clearly faded to a look of hurt, not fully realizing herself the true extent of why he decided to throw the paper at her, she had thought they got along swimmingly on the train..did she mistake that somehow? Did that all change now that they were in separate houses? Turning her head back to the front as her eyes focused on the desk in front of her, slowly opening the history book to read along the pages.

@Donald McCollum,@Athena McClenin,@Colin McCoire