Yearning | Hogwarts Legacy

Chapter Nine : Living In A Mad World

Walking into the Great Hall that Saturday morning was almost like walking into a party. Everyone was so excited about the exhibition Quidditch matches that nearly every older student had gone above and beyond to decorate their robes and clothes in support of their Hogwarts houses. Some students had even painted their faces or colored their hair in excitement.

Quidditch players walking in wearing their jerseys and sweaters were treated almost like gods, and suddenly Anne had never felt more claustrophobic.

Anne and Sebastian had decided to walk in together wearing their emerald and silver Quidditch sweaters and brown trousers, opting to change into their jerseys once they reached the pitch later in the morning. Even so, they were bombarded with attention and excitement from the moment they walked in for breakfast, and it took twice as long to reach their table than normal..

"I'm sorry," Sabrina said when they finally got to sit down. She was also wearing her knitted sweater in support. "I've been trying to tell the younger Slytherins to leave, but they all didn't want to listen."

"It's fine," Sebastian groaned as he grabbed some bacon before shoving it in his mouth with hardly any manners.

Anne instead grabbed her goblet and downed her pumpkin juice in a single gulp. She was still feeling jittery and uneasy from the interrogation the day before, and she almost felt like she was going to be sick.

When she tried to drink a second goblet of juice, Sebastian took it from her hands. "Calm down," he whispered. "You can't play when you're hyped up on sugar."

"Watch me," Anne snapped before grabbing a sausage with her fork. "What the hell was I thinking? Me joining a quidditch team? It makes sense for you, but me—"

"Anne, you're going to be great!" Sabrina encouraged. "You are a wonderful flier. I've never seen a game played before, so I'm looking forward to it."

Sebastian nudged his sister. "Relax. This is just for fun."

Anne wanted to laugh. Relax? How could she possibly relax when all she heard in her head was Imelda yelling and ranting about how incompetent the Slytherin team was? Or how, even though Anne had caught the practice snitch a million times, she still felt like the worst player they had? What if she didn't catch the snitch? What if she never even saw it before the other team? What was I thinking?

She was forced out of her thoughts suddenly when a small explosion erupted at the Slytherin table not far from where the three of them were sitting. When the group looked up, they saw that a second year Slytherin girl was now covered in her breakfast porridge, and a group of Gryffindor boys were standing nearby laughing hysterically at her.

Anne recognized the girl immediately by her blonde hair and silver eyes, and she felt bad when she saw the child was just sitting there in shock with her eyes on the brink of tears. Before she could get up, Sabrina was already on her feet and approaching the girl.

"Does Sabrina know who that is?" Anne asked her brother.

Sabrina sat down and held out a handkerchief to the child before beginning to try and wipe some porridge off her pale face. A few seconds later, a dark skinned second year Hufflepuff boy had joined them to help along with another second year Slytherin girl.

Sebastian shrugged. "I don't think so. I don't think she had many interactions with Corvina last year, and she avoided Verena like the plague."

Seeing Corvina Gaunt upset reminded Anne painfully of Ominis when he was her age, and how often he had been bullied just because of his appearance and his family name. Corvina even looked like Ominis when he was that age. Ominis had been an easy target because of his lack of eyesight and confidence, and now it seemed Corvina was suffering almost the same fate.