dursley [h. g.]

••dursley•• || beauxbatons and durmstrang

The next week of lessons passed slowly and painfully. Kendra handed in her essay to Professor McGonagall, who graded it right in front of her, giving her an E for her grade. The teachers were all high strung in anticipation of the arrival of the other schools competing in the Triwizard tournament. Every little mistake was an awful embarrassment to the school, fashion choices were criticized more heavily than ever, posture corrected, smiles forces upon their faces, all in an attempt to make a bunch of other teenagers impressed.

Kendra thought it was all ridiculous. They were still going to be the same rowdy Hogwarts crowd at the end of it, and they would probably still show up with mismatched socks and brightly coloured clips in their hair. Lisa agreed, and she did so with a lot more volume than Kendra did, expressing her disappointment to Professor Flitwick in great volumes.

And so, the week passed, with nothing more than their typical alternating hidden glances thrown between Kendra and Hermione. Friday arrived with palpable excitement in the air, the prospect of new the students exciting even the most reclusive Hogwarts inhabitants, students and professors alike. Classes let out early and students were divided by their house and year to stand and wait for the delegations to arrive. Lisa and Kendra stood next to each other, and they had slowly traded places with other Ravenclaws with friends in different houses so that they were standing with Mabel, Damon, and Luna.

Harry was standing close enough for Kendra to catch his attention and wave, grinning the whole time. Her parents had been very strict about with whom she did and didn't mingle with in her upbringing, a pathetic attempt to save their reputation from the utter disaster that was Kendra's "disease" (though it was more than one condition, they'd much rather pretend there was only one thing wrong with their once-perfect daughter). It made it all the more exciting to be able to see people who weren't British- not that she didn't love her friends, and not that there weren't people other than British people at the school, but it wasn't the same as people from France or middle-of-who-knows-where Bulgaria.

"You know, France has the highest concentration of veela in the world," Luna said suddenly as they stared into the evening sky in what was quite silent compared to those around them.

"Oooh, Kendra, will someone steal your eye?" Lisa teased, her fingers reaching out to poke Kendra in the stomach. She returned the poke with a glare.

"I'm not going to abandon the crush that I've worked so hard to devote all of my energy to for some veela I barely know," Kendra replied, the words making her giggle. Her gaze drifted to Hermione, who appeared to be scolding her cousin and Ron, presumably about not having read something. She could have stared at her all day, it didn't matter if people thought she was being weird, or creepy, all she needed was to look at Hermione Granger and-

"Personally," Damon said, startling Kendra from her thoughts and forcing her to return her gaze to her friends, "I wouldn't mind finding me a nice French boy, we can drink wine together and he can blow his cigarette smoke in my mouth. And then he'll take a week-old baguette and-"

"Okay, that's enough," Lisa said. "I don't need to know each gory detail of who, what, where, when, and how you want to be dominated. I've got to deal with Kendra talking about that in her sleep already. Besides, aren't you a Hufflepuff, aren't you the ones who think before you speak?"

"Trust me, I thought a lot before I spoke," Damon said, smiling at Lisa. "And not all of the 'Puffs are innocent. You heard about the one-"

"Who's hooking up with the Slytherin?" Lisa finished for Damon, smiling at him as if he were a child who had tried to solve a difficult maths problem and failed miserably. "Honey, that's been news for a week at least. Gossip moves fast at Hogwarts, but I move faster."