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THREE HOUSE OF FLOWERS

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     YOU KNOW, HOLLY thought that not much could happen in the five minutes she spent in the girls' toilets, brushing her teeth and her hair and massaging in the enchanted hair serum to make her locks a little shinier. But, alas, just she goes to open the bathroom door, raring and ready to go, Daphne walks in.

     "The rest of us are still getting ready," says Daphne, as she piles toothpaste onto her purple toothbrush. The four are sharing a cup, to put toothbrushes in. Holly's is the pink one... Obviously. "I think Malfoy's about to go to the hall, though, and get breakfast..."

     Holly nods. She's barely spoken to her cousin, she feels like, but you know what? She's starving and in need of toast with strawberry jam. There are far worst things than awkwardly eating breakfast. Like, wearing white jeans and sitting anywhere. Or forgetting to charge an electric toothbrush. Or Durmstrang. But whatever.

     So, whilst her friends are still getting ready, Holly walks towards the common room — she's grateful she at least knows the direction to this place — where her cousin's standing around next to one of the leather sofas. The two called Crabbe and Goyle are next to him. When are they not?

     "They're still getting ready, so, hello," says Holly. She smiles slightly because really, they've got no say in this. She's going to walk to the hall with them, whether they like it or not. She wants toast and she wants it now. Speaking of which— "Why are you standing around?"

     "We're waiting for Nott and Capote," says Draco. Zabini stands up from the sofa, the one with the back facing them. He walks over to them, pulling his schoolbag over his shoulder.

    Holly frowns. Capote? Her brain immediately thinks of Truman Capote, and she knows that there is no way in hell that some kid at Hogwarts is related to one of the greatest writers ever, but the surname catches her off-guard. Maybe it's also because the writer's a muggle and she knows that wizards like to ignore any sort of muggle culture. Which sucks for them, she thinks, because you know who they're missing out on? Cher. An icon.

     "Do we get our lessons at breakfast, then?" she asks. Mainly to put an end to the silence, but also, she'd like to know what lessons she has today.

     Draco nods. "We also share lessons with another house," he tells her. Holly sees his upper lip twitch like he's personally offended by something. She tries her best not to look as confused as she feels. "It's normally Gryffindor."

     Holly says, "That's the one you hate, yeah?"

     "There's a reason for it!" says Draco. "Slimy git—"

     "Now, it's rude to talk about Nott like that." The two called Nott and Capote show up. Capote's the one that spoke. Holly desperately tries to remember what his first name is. Most of them call each other by their surnames, so she guesses it isn't a major issue that she's still learning first names, but still. She'd like to learn them eventually.

     "Piss off, Capote."

     The one called Capote grins. The little group of them start to walk to the hall, and Holly feels her stomach churning. She's starving. Soon she'll start drooling at the idea of breakfast.

     "You're the one that went to Durmstrang, then?" asks Capote. Holly nods. Zabini walks next to them, and ahead, Nott's talking to Draco about something or another. "That's cool. My mum went there."

     "Is it as dark as they say it is?" asks Zabini. He asks like he's curious, but he doesn't want to see too keen. Which Holly gets. He probably wants to look cool, or something. Holly wants to be seen as mysterious. Same thing. Both are reaching for cool, really.

     Holly gives him a smirk. "Depends on what you think is dark," she tells him. She puts her hands in the pockets of her school robes. "I have a question though — if Slytherin and Gryffindor hate each other so much, why do we have lessons together?"

     "Because," says Capote. "School wants to test us, make sure we're ready for anything... You're yet to have a lesson with them. They're evil."

     Holly frowns. This is what she doesn't get. How bad can an entire house be? Even when she was at a muggle primary school, with houses named after gems, none of the houses were entirely terrible. Sure, some of them — the house called Rubies especially — were awful, but not everyone in that house was plain shite. Holly's best friend in primary school was in Rubies. Holly was in Diamonds. Surprise, surprise.

     "It's a shame we don't have Quidditch this year," says Capote. Holly glances over at him as they walk. She readjusts the position of her bag strap on her shoulder. A couple students in the same green robes rush back in the direction of their common room. "They throw tantrums when they don't win."

     "At Durmstrang, they told us that a good competitor is one that wins sometimes," says Holly. The stone walls don't rely on the artificial lighting of the candles anymore; the small amount of sunlight beams through the hallway. Holly's already beginning to miss summer. "It isn't a fair game if you're obviously better than them, and if it isn't a fair game, then you're not really winning."

     Capote whistles. "Well, shit... Did you play Quidditch, then?"

     "For about a month, then they took me off the team for not being big and scary," says Holly. She shrugs. "Which is fine. I still got to do swimming and duelling."

     "I wish we still had a duelling club," says Capote.

     Zabini snorts. "Why, did you like cursing yourself, Harlow?"

     Harlow. Capote's Harlow.

     "I always beat you," mutters Harlow. Holly snickers. Zabini rolls his eyes, but in the sort of way that even Holly, someone relatively new to them and their group of friends, knows is just messing about. "If that's the sort of stuff Durmstrang does, though, we've got no chance of winning this Tournament."

     Zabini shakes his head. "Of course we're going to win," he tells Harlow. "You know Dumbledore, the prat. Conveniently, a Gryffindor'll get picked and then they'll win."

     "Or they'll throw a tantrum?" asks Holly, raising an eyebrow.

     "You're learning quickly," says Harlow. He grins at her. She smiles back, but it's mostly because she can't help but feel like she's starting to make friends. Which makes her happy. Making friends should make anyone happy, she thinks. Her insides feel like they're twinkling with diamonds.

     They walk into the hall. Already Holly's starting to pick up on the idea that her friends tend to sit in the same area of the Slytherin table. She sits down next to Harlow, where the table's covered in toast and other breakfast foods on silver plates. Immediately Holly grabs some of the toast.

     Around her, she can hear the same conversation, only in varying tones and accents, colloquial words and expressions. Who's going to be the Hogwarts champion?

     There are the same suggestions. Someone called Cedric Diggory keeps on cropping up, and after listening into someone's conversation on the table next to hers, he's apparently on the Hufflepuff Quidditch team. A couple people jokingly say Harry Potter, and her cousin must hear that, too, because in the few times he's remarked about, he rolls his eyes.

     Susannah appears as Holly slathers butter and jam onto her second slice of toast. Pansy and the other girls have arrived now — when they showed up, Daphne grumbled like she had seen her nemesis burn her favourite cereal, and Pansy had leaned in and filled her in. "Perfect little Granger gave us such a nasty look when we were walking in," she had said. "Who does she think she is? The Queen of England?"

     Holly frowns. "Is she wrinkly, or something?"

     Pansy grins. "A wrinkly wart, all right."

     She knows it sounds bad, but part of Holly hopes that this girl is as bad as they say. Holly didn't mean to add to the insulting, she was trying to make a little remark referring to what her friend had said. That's what she does. But, then, her friends seem sweet, why would they be mean to someone who isn't truly evil?

     Holly sighs, and takes another bite of toast.

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     HOGWARTS IS PROVING to be quite educational.

     She needs to get the parchment and quill out, because shit, would her dad be happy to hear that it was worthwhile, prying her out of Durmstrang's cold claws and forcing another school to take her in. (Because nothing is impossible if you try hard enough!) Hogwarts is really, truly, the educational institution Holly was looking for after three long years at Durmstrang, and seven at a muggle primary school before that.

     Holly's learnt many things, and it is still her first proper day of school. This is just like the second day of year three when she was at primary school (her dad always called it an elementary school, though, which made Little Holly scrunch her nose up and tell him this isn't America, dummy) when they learnt about division and paragraphs and World War Two. It was a truly amazing day... Plus, it was also the day that Little Holly accidentally made the class guinea pig dance the macarena.

     Number one. The rivalry between Slytherin and Gryffindor is alive, a thing with teeth and claws and a cold breath. She had Care of Magical Creatures with them earlier, and even the looks alone were deadly. How can two houses hate each other so much? This is on par with Capulet and Montague, and she knows how terribly that turned out.

     But the looks. The looks! It was the same on both ends, only on the Gryffindor side, there was one boy that looked a little more scared than filled with hatred. Maybe his fear masks the hatred. It probably does. From the way she was stared at like they were wondering what was wrong with her to put her in Slytherin, she's under the impression that the whole house hates them as much as the Slytherins hate them.

     (She doesn't know whether to include herself in this. She is a Slytherin, but she's mostly confused. It's peculiar, seeing this amount of hatred for no actual reason. She doesn't get it. Sure, she doesn't like the looks and the upturned noses, but she can't say she hates Gryffindor like her friends do.)

     Number two. People really don't move from other schools. Sure, she knew that not many did, but by the number of stares she's been receiving since the night before, when she walked up and got Sorted with the student three years younger, no one does. The last person to move from another school must've been around when those four founders were still alive. You would've thought Holly's a treasured diamond sitting in a museum, after being long-lost in the Paris catacombs for centuries with the number of stares she's getting.

     (She hopes her hair looks nice today. Maybe she'll attract a pretty boy and she can get a boyfriend. That might be nice.)

     Number three. That Harry Potter boy? The one that defeated Voldemort, let the worried parents sigh a breath of relief? He's fucking weird.

     The longer the day progresses, the more Holly's realising that her friends are telling the cold truth. "Potter thinks that he's got to save the whole world," Draco had muttered earlier on. At the time, Holly frowned and nodded and wondered how he could tell that. But, then, Holly stood next to her new friends in Care of Magical Creatures, listening to the teacher talk, and glanced around, only to find Harry Potter looking at her, with a frown on his face.

     What's his deal? Holly tries to mould the 'he thinks he's got to save the whole world' idea, but even then, it still sounds completely ridiculous. So he thinks that the world is his thing to save. So a new girl comes along, and he wonders why she's there, if she's good or bad. Who thinks like that? Who sees someone new and gets suspicious? Like, gee, if Holly was the Durmstrang kid recruited by the Death Eaters to infiltrate Hogwarts, would they seriously pick the one who lives with her muggle father? Idiots.

     So. Care of Magical Creatures. It's far nicer than how they taught it at Durmstrang, with the creatures in question sitting in steel cages on desks in cold classrooms, their claws bloody from trying to pry apart the bars and escape. Here, the subject focuses on the care aspect.

     The teacher is quite friendly as well, which Holly likes. Apparently, he's half-giant, half-wizard, and he was nice to her. Nicer than her older teachers. Holly's noticed that since her first lesson this morning. Everything she sees, everything she hears — everything is being compared to Durmstrang. From the chairs in classrooms — some here feel like cold church pews without the cushion — to the way that teachers appeared in classrooms, beginning whatever lesson they taught, every similarity and difference is being written up in her head. The differences side is longer than the similarities side, which has two things: lessons start at nine, and History of Magic is horrendous, regardless of the school.

     Holly's walking alongside Pansy and Harlow, who are complaining about their last lesson, when her cousin and his two apparent minions appear out of nowhere, proudly holding onto a newspaper. She wants to frown, because, in the normal, muggle world, no teenager finds newspapers interesting, nor would they have subscriptions sent to school to check on the news. They were funny about newspapers being sent into Durmstrang. Especially the British ones. In case any ideas contradicted the things being taught. Such as, it is illegal in the U.K. to perform the Unforgiveable Curses, whereas there, that was like, lesson one.

     She still feels like she's trying too hard to be an adult, all mature and that shit, when she's reading a newspaper. At the end of the day, she's a teenager who prefers to learn her news on the television at breakfast-time. But, of course, this is something that's impossible to carry out at Hogwarts — and Durmstrang too... that's another similarity! — since the castle frazzles technology.

     Holly misses television. She's amazed that all of her friends have no idea what it is, because really, in the holidays when she's at home, if there's nothing to do, there she is on the sofa, with the remote in one hand and a cup of hot chocolate in another. Sitcoms are one of her favourite things because they're so easy to watch. They're like warm hugs after being away from home for a long time... Which she was, but you know what she means.

     The three in front start to laugh smugly at something. Holly raises an eyebrow, and her cousin looks over his shoulder, smirking like he's holding the red button to fire nuclear weapons at the Soviets or something. "Oh, Holly," says Draco. "You've got to see this."

     "See what?" she says.

     "You haven't met the idiots in Gryffindor yet," says Draco. He has a malicious smile on his face, as he walks closer to the Great Hall. He's holding onto a rolled-up newspaper, and part of Holly wants to summon Susannah, to get her to grab the newspaper and hold onto it until Holly can sneak off and look at it herself. She's intrigued by all of this. Also confused. But also intrigued. Harry Potter must be terrible for her friends to hate him this much.

     Whilst their friends move to get to the part of the queue leading to the side of the hall with the Slytherin table, Draco makes a bee line towards another part of the line waiting for dinner. Holly follows because she supposes she has no say in this — and really, is it much of an issue? There are far worst things to fight for than I don't want to come with you, thanks.

     "Weasley! Hey, Weasley!"

     Three people turn around. A ginger boy with freckles all over his face, a brunette girl with large front teeth, and Harry Potter. At some point today she's heard the girl's name, but she's pretty sure that when her name was said by a teacher, after, "Yes, well done," Susannah was somewhere, performing a somersault. Susannah has a tendency to float around in manoeuvres similar to gymnastic performances. She refuses to touch the ground, but she likes to execute a teddy bear roll mid-air.

     "What?" says the ginger. Supposedly Weasley.

     "Your dad's in the paper, Weasley!" says Draco. He shoves a newspaper up to their noses, speaking loudly — probably so everyone can hear him — and he continues, looking proud of himself. Holly is confused. "Listen to this!

FURTHER MISTAKES AT

THE MINISTRY OF MAGIC

      It seems as though the Ministry of Magic's troubles are not yet at an end, writes Rita Skeeter, Special Correspondent. Recently under fire for its poor crowd control at the Quidditch World Cup, and still unable to account for the disappearance of one of its witches, the Ministry was plunged into fresh embarrassment yesterday by the antics of Arnold Weasley, of the Misuse of Muggle Artifacts Office."

     Draco grins. Holly tries her best to keep her frown hidden because, at the moment, her cousin doesn't look like he's in the right place. Why would they, the ones being tormented, willingly go up to the others to mock and antagonise them?

     "Imagine them not even getting his name right, Weasley," says Draco. Holly tries her best to put on a poker face, hide her confusion. Her friends aren't bad. Maybe the Gryffindors pretend to be innocent like this, and then behind their backs, that's when the knives come out. There was a girl at her primary school like that. Fucking Suzie and her horse obsession. "It's almost as though he's a complete nonentity, isn't it?"

     Crabbe and Goyle start to laugh and nod like the joke is funny. It really isn't. Sure, she might greatly misunderstand the situation occurring, but come on. That wasn't even a joke. She's seen Susannah make better jokes than this.

     Draco looks over his shoulder to where Crabbe and Goyle's roaring laughter is dying down, but they've still got smirks on their faces. He turns back to the other three, to read the rest. "Arnold Weasley, who was charged with possession of a flying car two years ago, was yesterday involved in a tussle with several Muggle law-keepers ("policemen") over a number of highly aggressive dustbins."

     Holly scoffs at the confusion in his voice, as he tries to say, policemen. Harry Potter looks at her. Again. He looks like he's trying to read her thoughts. Holly frowns at him.

      "Mr Weasley appears to have rushed to the aid of "Mad-Eye" Moody, the aged ex-Auror who retired from the Ministry when no longer able to tell the difference between a handshake and at- tempted murder. Unsurprisingly, Mr Weasley found, upon arrival at Mr Moody's heavily guarded house, that Mr Moody had once again raised a false alarm. Mr Weasley was forced to modify several memories before he could escape from the policemen, but refused to answer Daily Prophet questions about why he had involved the Ministry in such an undignified and potentially embarrassing scene."

     "And there's a picture, Weasley!" says Draco. He quickly flips the newspaper around to show them the photo. Holly puts her hands in the pockets of her robes. Almost everyone around them is watching them. "A picture of your parents outside their house — if you can call it a house! Your mother could do with losing a bit of weight, couldn't she?"

     Holly's eyes widen. "Uh—"

     "Get stuffed, Malfoy," says Harry. Holly raises an eyebrow. He means Draco, right? Right? He's not saying that to her, implying that her surname's Malfoy? She's a proud Lippincott. The same name as the magazine that published The Picture of Dorian Gray. The same name as her lovely father, who runs a lovely plastic surgery clinic in London. "C'mon, Ron..."

     "Oh, yeah, you were staying with them this summer, weren't you, Potter?" says Draco. Holly doesn't like this, not at all. "So tell me, is his mother really that porky, or is it just the picture?"

     "You know your mother, Malfoy?" says Harry. Holly feels like she's watching one of those nature documentaries her dad likes to watch. This didn't happen at Durmstrang. Or, at least, at Durmstrang, fighting happened immediately and the grunts made were too quick for her to understand. "That expression she's got like she's got dung under her nose? Has she always looked like that, or was it just because you were with her?"

    Holly covers her mouth to hide her smile. What the hell. She didn't expect this. She isn't sure if this is better than the one-dimensional evil, arrogant Harry Potter her cousin told her about, but damn. That's gold.

     Draco, on the other hand, looks like he wants to skin Harry Potter alive. Holly understands why, because really if someone said something about her father, she wouldn't bother asking Susannah to be discretely evil. And Draco should've seen this coming. But, Holly knows that once they reach their table for dinner, her cousin's going to complain about this and cast the Gryffindors in a bad light, when really, he started the whole thing.

     But Holly needs to exercise her metamorphic ways. Right now, she cannot test her friends by saying that Draco had everything coming for him because, at the minute, she's still an outsider to them. Saying that sort of stuff is two months in, at the least. Those sort of comments can only be said when you're good friends with them, that they won't get angry if you say something against their friend of four years.

     "Don't you dare insult my mother, Potter."

     "Keep your fat mouth shut, then," Harry Potter grumbles, as he begins to turn away. At this, someone grabs Holly's arm, pulling her into the crowd, away from the bang that goes off. Holly turns, expecting it to be Susannah, but instead, it's Harlow. She's pleasantly surprised. Also confused. But a little pleased. Has she made a friend?

     "I thought you were further towards our table," says Holly, lowering her voice. The rest of the entrance hall has gone deadly silent, and Holly's briefly reminded of Durmstrang.

     "Moody pushed past us," says Harlow. "The teachers don't need to associate you with Malfoy and Potter's rivalry."

     Harlow lets go of her wrist, as they reach the rest of their friends, closer towards the door to the hall. Holly feels uplifted, even if everyone surrounding her looks panicked. Her new friend was nice to her. She feels like skipping through the hallways singing With a Little Help From My Friends.

     "Did he transfigure Draco into a ferret?" whispers Pansy.

     Holly, who's moving the diamond across her necklace's chain, turns back around to them and frowns. "Does that not happen here?"

     "No?" says Blaise, looking confused. "Does that happen at Durmstrang—?"

     Holly wants to laugh and bitterly remark, this is a light punishment there. But she isn't sure how long she'll live if she starts talking about how terrible Durmstrang was towards the end, what with the headteacher coming here soon.

     Susannah sits on the shoulders of some student in a blue (Ravenclaw?) uniform. She looks intrigued by whatever's going on in the area Holly had been standing, being stared at, and trying not to side with the wrong people. Holly sees Susannah's head tilt up to watch, before she looks down at Holly and, with a wicked smile, says, "The ferret's being flown around."

     Holly's about to inform her friends, but another voice shouts, "Professor Moody!"

     "Hello, Professor McGonagall."

    "What — what are you doing?"

     "Teaching."

     Holly glances back at her friends, who all looked incredibly horrified. Her whisper's the Durmstrang one, the one barely audible unless you properly listen, so to them, it looks like she's mouthing, "What is this school?"

     Harlow whispers, "A shit-show."

     Holly tries not to laugh.

     (And look! She's made a friend!)

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