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Victoria was incredibly early, so early that she wondered if she even had Potions today. It wasn't uncommon for Victoria to be early, in fact she hated being late, if she was more than 15 minutes late to anything she would probably skip it. But she had never before gotten to a classroom before the professor. Victoria supposed she was just anxious to be in Potions lesson with Slytherins. Victoria prided herself on being unprejudiced as possible but some of the Slytherins in her year have been pretty nasty to her and the other Hufflepuffs. She had never had Potions with the Slytherins (this being her Third year) but last year she had Herbology and DADA with them in her First year she had Care of Magical Creatures and DADA with them. Both years there were multiple fights between Victoria and various Slytherins, Victoria wasn't one to back down from a fight, even though she was a Hufflepuff. Obviously she was not the average Hufflepuff, she was kind and hard-working but she would also stand up for herself which is a trait not many Hufflepuffs have.
But the problem at hand was Victoria had somehow arrived to the dungons 30 minutes prior to when she needed to, at this point she had two options she could either go to breakfast (which she had skipped) or she could simply wait it out, sitting in the floor next to the classroom door until Slughorn came to open it. Since the Great Hall was a five minute walk each way and she wanted to get a good seat in front (she had read that people who sit in the front of class get better grades and she wanted an O.) Victoria decided she would wait, risking being seen as just a little pathetic, and do some light reading. She pulled out her well-worn thrift shop copy of Murder On The Orient Express by Agatha Christie and settled in a comfortable position. After a good 15 minutes and 20 pages later Professor Slughorn came around and let her in. Victoria sat in the very front and left most table.
"My dear, why didn't you go to the Great Hall for a bit instead of sitting on that cold floor?' Sluhorn asked with what semed to be a tinge of pity, over her being on the uncomfortable ground or that this made her seem to have no friends she was not sure.
"I just wanted a bit of quiet before the first class of the year, Professor." She lied smoothly, she didn't feel like making chit-chat and discouraged him from questioning her further.
"That's quite a good idea, Miss Singh. Don't mind me then, I'll just be getting a few last minute things ready for class." Slughorn said pleasently. They both fell silent and Victoria became enraptured in her book as Slughorn bustled around.
Ten minutes before before class a shy-looking Slytherin girl appeared and went to a table in the middle row. Victoria knew that this girl was Rhea Snape. Rhea had medium length black hair which always looked slightly greasy, she also had a prominent hooked-nose, and was on the short side. Snape seemed nice enough, she hung out with that Evans girl in Gryffindor though. Evans seemed a bit snotty, especially for a Muggle-born. Evans once saw Victoria peck a girl on the lips to say good bye and called them disgusting, Snape had been there but was staring at her feet, looking as though she couldn't have disagreed more, Evans hadn't noticed but Victoria did. Snape was pretty unpopular when it came to people besides Lily Evans, the Maruaders always were playing pranks on her. Victoria honestly had a bit of a crush on her, even though Rhea was not conventionally attractive she was strangely endearing. Victoria knew Rhea was intelligent, from what she had heard that Rhea was kind of a potions genius and that intellect made her all the more alluring. Rhea must have felt Victoria's eyes on her and she looked up through her long eyelashes, Victoria-having been caught- grinned at Rhea with no shame and the corners of Rhea's mouth turned up in a tentative smile. Satisfied, Victoria faced to the front of the class again and continued to read until her friends arrived.
Lula and Layla Abbott, twins, came in a few minutes later as more people began filing in and sat down at the table behind Victoria. They always sat with each other in Potions and usually Victoria sat with one of her other housemates, Lissa Andrews, but she had recently gotten a boyfriend and wanted to spend as much time with him as possible so Victoria was alone at her table. Lula, Layla, and Victoria started talking about how excited they were for the Hogsmead trips they were now allowed to go on and new gossip about classmates when Slughorn called the class to attention.
"Hello! I trust you all had brilliant summer vacations!" The class murmured in agreement. ''Good, good. Oh, Miss Snape it seems you and Miss Singh are without partners. Why don't you come up and join her?" Slughorn suggested. Rhea nodded mutely, gathered her things, and walked up to their newly shared station, she turned a blotchy red from having attention focused on her. Victoria smiled gently at her once again as she sat down and this time she was less hesitant to return it.
"...And that's really all you need to know about this year's syllabus. Now I know you all are anxious to catch up with each other after being away so long, so take the rest of class to 'hang' as the kids say these days." Slughorn chuckled a bit and sat at his desk to do something or the other. Victoria immediately turned back to face Lula and Layla.
"What did you guys think of the new Rich Witch song?" Victoria questioned. Talking about the new wizard rock band that had become really popular as of late because of their song "Take Me On A Broomstick Ride''.
"Loved it!" Enthused Layla.
"That one verse is great, where she does the high pitched thing." Said Lula, who then imitated the lead singer by shrieking off-key in what she probably thought was good. Victoria and Layla and pretty much all of the Hufflepuffs were used to these type of antics from Lula but the Slytherins all looked around in slight fear. Rhea jumped about a foot in the air and turned to stare at Lula for a moment before turning away a shaking her head. Victoria laughed and turned around to face forward.
"You get used to it." Victoria giggled to Rhea. Rhea shook her head.
"I don't think you get used to it, you just start going deaf." She said. Victoria gave a surprised laugh. So Rhea was funny too, she thought.
"That is a possible explanation. I do have to ask people to repeat themselves quite often." She intoned seriously. Rhea nodded in mock sadness and they looked at each other and then both burst out laughing at the same time.
"I'm Victoria by the way." She said when the laughter subsided.
"I know." Rhea said immediately, then blushed at the quickness of the reply. "I-I mean-"
"I get what you mean.'' Victoria said kindly but with a smirk on her face. Rhea's eyes flickered down uncertainly.
"So, what did you do over summer?" Rhea tried to change the subject.
"I went back to Jaipur, India to visit some family with my father. My mom had to stay here for business but it's was pretty fun."
"So, are you from Jaipur?"
"Yeah, I moved to Scotland when I was about seven because my mom got job offer and she had been wanting to move back for a while, this is where she's from originally."
"That's cool." Rhea said.
"Yeah, but what about you? Any spectacular stories to tell?" Victoria joked.
"No not really, boring as usual. I just went around Lily Evans's house a bit. You know Lily, right?" Rhea asked, but then a look of realization came across her face. "Oh, of course you know her. From that one day when..." Rhea trailed off, looking shy all of the sudden.
"Yeah, she's kind of a-" Victoria started.
"Alright class, I hope you have a good first day back! Tomorrow we'll start with some notes then maybe on Thursday we'll begin brewing." Professor Slughorn declared. Victoria turned to Rhea again, who still appeared a tad spooked.
"WellI'vegottogo, wouldn'twanttobelateformynextclass BYE." Rhea said in one breath and marched out of the classroom before Victoria could get a word in.
That was weird, Victoria thought. Then it hit her, Rhea got weird when talking about Victoria kissing another girl.
It then donned on Victoria that Rhea must be a lesbian.
She wouldn't know until much later how far off she was.