(September 2nd, 1991, Hogwarts Castle, Scotland)

“Yhhuuaawn,” was the first thing Gabby Xoth heard that morning. She then checked the clock above the door, and ‘Why the fudge is someone up at six in the morning?!’ became her first thought that morning.

The room was still dark. Only the dim, pale luminance of the clock's hands and markings gave the objects of the dorm even a sliver of form.

“Morning Gabby,” she heard a whisper near her right ear. It took all her willpower for her to not scream, though she did still jump away from the sudden voice. In fact, she jumped quite a bit away, a full metre, right of the side of her bed too. Then, instead of hitting the hard wooden floor, something caught her. “Wow there, don't want to go breaking before our first day now do we.” the someone— who was now holding her in a princess carry— whispered again.

“Eep!” she whisper-shouted. ‘How did they catch me? I could have sworn that I jumped away from them! For that matter how did they catch me so smoothly, it's almost pitch black in here!’

Whoever it was gently put her down, and then held her still for a moment as she regained her balance.

Gabby then crossed her arms, and asked “Who are you, and why are you up at six o'clock in the morning?”

“I'm Artemis, and I am up this early because it's a good time to be up at? Like, breakfast starts at half past seven, and I'd like to be there when it does.” Artemis said quietly.

“That doesn't make this any less too early.” Gabby retorted.

“Oh, well, ten to six is eight hours, so I thought it would be a reasonable time to be up at. If you want, I can not make any noise until the rest of you start waking?” Artemis said.

“Ugh, yes. Now, I'm going to try to get another hour of sleep. Please don't make any more noise.” Gabby finished. She then felt her way back into her bed, and wiggled back into the covers. Idly, Gabby noticed that she never heard Artemis get back in bed. What she didn't notice was that she never heard Artemis make any sounds at, not even the slightest shuffling of feet, nor the faintest rustling of cloth.

Absolutely nothing at all.

⋇⋆✦⋆⋇

“Yhhuuaawn,” was— once again— the first thing Gabby heard when waking up, but it was a different pitch and timbre from the last yawn she'd heard. The lightning in the room was different as well. All of the lamps were glowing with a warm light that illuminated the room, to the point that everything was clearly visible. Though the room was still not even close to bright.

“Morning Megan,” Artemis said from two beds over.

“Morning stranger,” the Black girl who yawned— presumably Megan— replied.

Artemis then turned to Gabby, and said “Morning Gabby,”

“Morning Artemis,” Gabby responded.

Another girl stirred from her bed. “Hello everyone,” she intoned groggily. “Are we doing introductions already?”

“I figure that we should wait until everybody is up in a few minutes, that way we don't have to go over this twice.” Artemis said.

“Mm-kay,” the girl replied.

Deciding that she had better thing to do than watch each girl wait up one by one, Gabby fumbled through her luggage— which she hadn't actually had the opportunity to properly unpack yet— for her toothbrush, and went towards the bathroom. At the same time that Gabby entered the bathroom, she passed by a dark haired brunette with yellow eyes, who was on her way out.

““Hn,”” they both grunted in tired greeting.

After brushing her teeth, Gabby returned to the main room for clothes, then put those on in one of the bathroom's several private shower stalls. A few minutes later she was back to sitting in her bed.

“Should we wake her up?” The question came from Hannah. All of the other girls were up except one.

“Yeah, that would probably be for the best.” Artemis said as she stood up. She then walked over to the sleeping girl and started… doing bird calls? It apparently worked, as the other girl gently woke up.

The previously sleeping girl blinked confusedly up towards Artemis. “Were you just tweeting at me?” the redheaded girl asked.

“Yes, yes I was,” said Artemis, with a bright smile on her face. She then walked back to her own bed and sat down. “So, now that we are all awake, I do believe introductions are in order.” she said. “Hello everyone, I'm Artemis Atterberry!”

After a few silent seconds, the girl to Artemis’ left sighed. “We might as well do this clockwise. I'm Laura Nachreiner,” she said. Laura had dirty blonde hair, and grey irises.

“Gabby Xoth,” said Gabby Xoth.

“Hi, I’m Eileen Furloe,” Was how the brunette with yellow eyes introduced herself. Eileen's bed was near the bathroom wall, so the cycle moved across to the other side of the room.

“Samantha Entallious,” a girl with light brown hair and blue eyes said.

Then it was the turn of the blonde with pigtails. “Hello, I am Hannah Abbott,” she said.

“Megan Jones,” said a girl with dark skin and curly black hair.

“Susan Bones,” was a brunette with blue eyes.

“Alice Olkson,” was the green eyed curly redhead.

“And last but not least, Janet Twycross!” shouted a girl with straight black hair, olive skin, and deep blue eyes. That got a few chuckles from around the room.

“So,” Artemis took the lead. “Now that introductions have been done, I think we should let Alice washup, and then make our way towards the Great Hall for breakfast. Is that alright with everybody?” There was a wave of affirmations from everyone.

“Right, I- um I'll get to that.” Alice said, as she fumbled through her luggage for the day's clothes.

“Take your time,” Megan said, watching the other girl go.

As the redhead performed whatever her morning hygiene routine was, the other nine of them had a short discussion about their still yet to be unpacked luggage.

Alice walked back in at the same time that Laura was speaking. “—they never said we couldn't. So I say that we just go for it! It's better to ask for forgiveness than for permission.” she said excitedly.

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“What the historian did I just walk in on?” Alice asked.

“Laura wants to commit a crime.” Eileen said with a smirk.

“Also, who the hell says what the historian?” Janet added.

“It's not a crime!” Laura tried to defend herself, though she was quite red in the face.

“At the very least, it would be a crime against nature.” retorted Samantha.

“Yeah, but we're witches, we commit crimes against nature all the time.” Artemis added her bit to the pie.

“Okay, hold on, what exactly are you all debating?” Alice asked.

“We were discussing messing with the layout of the room.” said Gabby, before she glanced at the clock. “I said ‘were’ because this discussion is now over. We need to head up for breakfast.”

“When is that anyways?” asked Hannah.

“Seven thirty, according to Artemis,” Gabby replied.

The group started leaving after that. Up the many steps of the stairs, and into the common room. Jennifer was waiting on one of the couches near the fire.

“Ah first-years, I was about to come get you. I was a little worried that all of you had slept in. And the castle can be a bit of a maze at times, so it's best to always plan on being early.” she said, slipping the book she was reading into a bag of holding by her side. Enchanted bags were, of course, a staple item that all of them had as part of their school supplies. Speaking of school supplies. “The Hufflepuff head of house, Professor Sprout, left me some schedules to hand to you, but we can get those after breakfast.”

Jennifer then stood, and started leading them towards the Great Hall.

“All first-years of each house share a schedule, but after end of year exams you'll each have a meeting with Professor Sprout about any electives you want to take next year. If any of you have questions about the school, or anything dorm related, Sprout and I would both be happy to answer whatever we can.” the strawberry blonde haired teen continued.

Due to the location of the Hufflepuff common room being near the kitchens, it was not a walk. Once they reached the open gates of the grand hallway, Jennifer spoke again.

“Here we are,” she ushered them inside. “Normal students sit, very roughly, in accordance to their age. With younger students near the teachers table, and older students closer to the entrance. Though, as I said, it's just a very rough pattern that we all seem to follow rather than a rule, so really you can just sit wherever you want.” There was a brief pause, in which she held her chin in thought, before she glanced at the watch on her wrist. “Hmm, I'd like to see you lot meet back up with me in the common room by eight forty. That should give plenty of time for both breakfast and paper passing before classes start.” She then waved as she walked away, leaving the ten of them standing near the entrance.

“So… should we just find a place to sit, and start eating?” asked Susan.

“Yep!” said Artemis, already walking off.

The rest of the group scattered a little from there. Gabby— and a of the few others— followed Artemis to where she sat down, and the rest found other seating somewhere along Hufflepuff table.

The food was plenty good, though a bit greasy and salty for Gabby's tastes.

“You totally rushed us. I don't know about anyone else, but I definitely am not getting to breakfast this early again.” Samantha had said at some point during the small talk they had been making during the meal.

“Suit yourself,” Artemis replied curly, seeming unphased by the other girl's disapproval.

At around ten past eight Gabby was satisfied both nutritionally and socially, so she started the trek back to the common room. After a quick .-..- It was revealed that she was the first of her group back. The others apparently had larger appetites, be they dietary or in regards to social interaction.

Deciding to be productive with her time, Gabby spent half an hour unpacking her luggage and organising it. She was still not even halfway done, but it was progress that she would be glad to be ahead on later. As the clock approached eight forty, Gabby halted her work, and ascended the stairs to the common room. She'd only done the activity twice and she was already feeling the beginnings of the inevitable burn.

‘I'd better have some damn good calves by the end of this, or I swear to Merlin whoever designed these stairs is going to feel it.’ Gabby thought to herself as she noticed the forming aches. It was a long flight of stairs, and it was just plain cruel to place the first-years at the bottom.

She found the rest of her group— and also the first year Hufflepuff boys— already in the common room when she arrived. Jennifer and the boys’ perfect presented them with a stack of papers, and then explained the schedules to them.

“Now, I would recommend that you travel in groups for your first few weeks. All of the teachers and staff will be willing to point you where you need to go if you get lost, but asking an upperclassman is much less reliable. Plenty find messing with the first-years funny, so it's best to not get lost in the first place, and being in a group helps with that.” Jennifer exposited, before the male perfect continued.

“You'll all want to keep one of these copies of the first-year schedule in your book bags. Speaking of which, remember to bring those. They're just as, if not more important than your wand for all of your classes.” he said.

“You don't want to learn the hard way why note taking is so important. Now the two of us have classes to get to, so we'll be off now.” said Jennifer, as she waved them goodbye.

A few moments passed in silence after the two perfects left. “So… what are we meant to do for the next two hours?” Hannah asked.

Artemis spoke up first. “Judging by the large empty spaces throughout the schedule, I infer that in the future we'll be doing lots of homework and or studying outside of class. But it looks like, for now, we can just do whatever.” And then she just kinda… disappeared. Like, Artemis had finished with her part in the conversation, then Gabby blink and Artemis was just not there anymore.

The sound of a door closing drew her attention to the exit. “Did Artemis just.. leave?” Gabby asked the group.

“Apparently,” said one of the boys.

Gabby sighed. “Well, I guess this at least gives us enough time to finish unpacking everything.” she said.

Everybody groaned at that, with a wide range of verbal complaints following Suit. Gabby took a mental note of how unified the group was in their exasperation.

⋇⋆✦⋆⋇

Gabby was indeed glad that she'd had a head start with unpacking. Inside her head she was more than a little smug, but she made no move to show it. Instead, she passed the time by reading in the common room. Snuggled up in a big pile of pillows with a trashy romance novel in hand, there was nothing else she'd rather be doing. Sadly, like all good things, it came to an end.

Charms class was interesting at least. It was mostly just going over the most basic parts of ‘what is a charm?’, followed by classroom safety, and a bit about what to expect from the class in the future. Then they were told to study the first X number of pages in their textbook, so that they could go over the light charm next class.

A next class that was on Friday, at the end of the week. ‘Who designed these damn schedules?’ was what Gabby was thinking as she shuffled past a group of Ravenclaws clogging the door.

The girl with wavy black hair moved a bit down the hall and then sat off to the side, before she pulled her schedule out of her book bag. Next up— immediately after Charms— was lunch. Gabby had, of course, kinda remembered that. But it was better to be safe than sorry, so she double checked anyways. With that confirmation, she started walking through the many halls between her and the Great Hall where all meals were held. All of the halls and corridors were made of the same light grey stone, however they did vary substantially. Some had tiled floors, but others were wooden or carpeted. Plenty were tall and wide, yet there was variance there as well. One corridor Gabby walked through was lined with suits of armour, and another with tapestries, then a third had windows on the left wall.

The halls weren't even half as diverse as the stairs. There must've been hundreds of them about the castle. There were big stairs, little stairs, brick stairs, stone stairs, rope bridges or ladders being used as stairs, glass stairs, an impossibly sturdy carpet with no support structure, wide stairs with steps so small it was better to treat those stairs like a bumpy ramp, and so many more.

Gabby was starting to understand why Jennifer had called the castle a maze even after spending however many years at Hogwarts.

It took half a dozen minutes of navigation, but Gabby eventually managed to find her way to the Great Hall, and a glance at Hufflepuff table revealed that she was the third of the first-years to arrive. Somehow Artemis and one of the boys had out navigated her. She went to sit by them, and when she did Artemis introduced her to the Asian boy.

John— full name Jōnetsu Mirham— had apparently barely beaten Gabby by about a minute, as he and Artemis had only just finished ‘saying hi’ when Gabby walked in. Noticeably, John had orange eyes, which Gabby thought was a pretty cool colour.

The food was better than both dinner and breakfast, but she knew that it was just because the items served fitted her personal tastes more. As she ate Gabby observed the slow flow of first-years finally finding their way in. Once she had finished her food she briefly considered starting to converse, but quickly decided that she would rather read than talk to anybody, and Artemis had already disappeared again.

She was starting to see a pattern in that, first after they were given their schedules, then again at the end of Charms class, and now a third time. Once was happenstance, twice was a coincidence, three times… well, that was a pattern. A pattern of what, Gabby didn't know yet. Maybe Artemis was a ninja?

⋇⋆✦⋆⋇

History of Magic was somehow way less interesting than Charms, despite going over the exact same things. The teacher talked with such an even cadence that Gabby almost thought that not even he could pay attention to what he was saying. It was almost more boring than standing in line for over an hour during the Sorting Ceremony. The most interesting thing the ghostly— literally, he was a ghost— old man had said was that they would be starting with Rome, instead of working their way through boring pre-Roman magic history first.

Gabby and the other first-year Hufflepuffs had that class with Slytherin, which wasn't nearly as bad as Gabby had anticipated—

“That's because they don't know you yet!” a cheerful voice said from right beside her.

“Eep!” Gabby shouted as she leapt away in surprise, right into the waiting arms of… “Artemis? What the heck!” she asked.

“Yeah, Slytherins are pretty specific in how they attack people! Judging by my observations of our upperclassmen, they're waiting to know more about us.” the unfairly pretty blonde said.

“What? We're did you even come from, I could've sworn that I was on my way to the library alone. Also please put me down, this is embarrassing.” said Gabby.

“Right sorry,” the taller girl quickly acquiesced, gently letting her out of the princess carry that she had somehow been caught in.

Speaking of which, “How did you even catch me? I heard you on my left, but you caught me after I jumped right.” Gabby asked.

“Magic,” said Artemis, clearly trying to be mysterious.

“You and I both know that that isn't a real explanation!” Gabby said as she unruffled her robes.

When she looked back up, Artemis was gone. She glanced around, but that revealed nothing.

‘Where the heck did she go?’ Gabby thought with a furrowed brow. “Artemis! What the fudge, where did you go?” she called out into the empty hallway, to no effect. “Definitely a ninja,” she muttered to herself.

She then later saw Artemis in the library, skimming through some sort of transfiguration book. Gabby decided that it would be more productive to ignore the strange girl, so she found a secluded corner of the library to settle down in, and pulled out her Charms textbook to start studying. She had almost five hours until dinner started, and she was going to study the shingles out of that light charm!

…For about an hour. Yeah, as it turned out, there wasn't really five hours worth of study material about the spell in her book. So after an hour and a half, she figured she'd done enough for the day, and headed back to the common room.

Thus ended Gabby Xoth’s schooling that day, drowned out by a mountain of pillows and the cope of much fluff.