Welcome Feast // Open

[Cordelia Gold]

Cordelia didn't care about the Sorting Hat's song. She didn't care about the first-years. She didn't care about the new teachers, and she had already heard Dumbledore's rules enough to recite it of by heart. When was it going to be over? Cordelia wanted food. She looked down at her stomach with pity. Poor thing had been rumbling all night. All she has had to eat were Rory's Chocolate Frogs. She needed something more substantial if she were to go to the Welcome Rave after the Feast. Because it would not do her any good to drink on an empty stomach.

Oh, how responsible of her.

After what seemed like months, the food appeared on the tables. Cordelia looked at the table filled with food in front of her with delight, like the first time she witnessed food randomly appearing at the table when she was only eleven. Not wasting any time, she dug in, putting an impressive amount of chicken, potatoes and gravy on her plate; enough amount to rival a Weasley. What? She was hungry. She ate quickly, but not barbarically or anything. Cordelia was a Gold. She learned about manners and proper etiquette, you know. She was one of the first to finish but had just enough room for seconds. Finishing her meal after her - what, third - treacle tart, she finished her meal off with a drink of water.

Girls that surrounded her gave her looks of envy, because of her high metabolism. How can someone so thin eat that much? Cordelia smirked in undeniable triumph. She turned next to her. Scarlett, her best friend, seemed to have been looking at her with a mixture of awe and disgust. You would think that after all these years, she would get used to Cordelia's eating habits.

"I was hungry." she said, her tone on the defensive.

word count: 310

[Harry Potter]

Just outside the Great Hall, Harry wiped his nose with the back of his black school robes. A trickle of oozing, dark red blood smeared across his clothing as he drew in a deep breath, careful not to look Snape in the eye. The look of pure satisfaction on Snape’s sadistic face was enough to make Harry hurl right then and there. Instead, Harry took a few steps as Snape opened the large, mahogany doors of the Great Hall and beckoned for Harry to go through. Immediately, as if drawn by string, all heads turned to stare at Harry as he quickly walked up the aisle towards his fellow Gryffindors; about halfway up sat Hermione, Ron, Ginny and a few of the others. Keeping his eyes focused solely on his group of friends, Harry felt the heat rise up his neck as muttering started. He was late, the infamous Harry Potter was late and had blood on his face—of course this caused gossip.

“Don’t ask, I’ll tell you in a minute.” Harry said, shaking his head at Hermione’s quizzical look. He knew she wanted to ask what happened with the way she opened her mouth slightly but much to Harry’s pleasure, she shut it again and looked up to the table where the professors were chatting.

As he helped himself to a large portion of treacle tart [his absolute favorite food] Harry’s attention fixed to the front where McGonagall stood, holding the Sorting Hat. Distantly thinking to himself, Harry realized this was one of the first times he’d witnessed the Sorting. Unlike the usual song that the Hat sang, though, he told a tale of the four founders and of the perils now faced in the Wizarding world. Clearly, Harry wasn’t the only one to find this weird as whispering soon started and everybody looked around anxiously at each other, question in their eyes. Many turned to Harry, looking at him, with a mixture of emotions.
“What d’you think that was all about?” Harry asked, chewing his tart slowly and deliberately, as his bright green eyes flashed between Ron and Hermione. He knew Hermione would know because she was nodding to herself, a trait she’d developed over the years. Before anyone could answer his question, Dumbledore was standing, holding his hands up; an action to show he wanted quiet.
Dumbledore talked his usual meaningless rubbish and backed up what the Sorting Hat said.
“Alas, we have this year, again, a new member of staff.” He said, serenely, as if he could chuckle lightly at any moment. “Professor Horace Slughorn will be filling the position of Potions master; I would like you to welcome him.” A small round of applause and whispering began immediately; if Slughorn was going to be Potions, then that meant that Snape would be getting his lifelong goal. Harry cast a wary glance over to Ron and Hermione, a small grimace on his face. Dumbledore paused for a moment then continued. “Therefore, Professor Snape will be the new Defense Against the Dark Arts teacher. Now, please, eat!”

Choking on his piece of treacle tart, Harry spluttered and coughed, his eyes welling up with the pressure of his coughing. He took a huge gulp of pumpkin juice and slugged down the rest of his tart and looked up at his friends around him, all of whom wore similar expressions of shock. All except Hermione.
“Don’t tell me you guessed that this was going to happen?” Harry asked her, raising his eyebrows and exchanging a furtive glance with Ron. “Do you agree with the decision?” He quickly added as the idea sprung to his mind.

A few seats down, Harry’s attention was caught for a moment by the blinding image of a sheet of flaming, red hair falling gracefully down the back and across the shoulders of Ginny. She was talking fast and surrounding her were Dean Thomas, Samantha and Marion, and they were all nodding and talking faster in low voices. He watched her for a moment before suddenly turning back to Ron and Hermione, deciding it wouldn’t do to be caught staring at his best friend’s little sister.
“Defense has always been my favorite subject. You know Snape’s going to start failing me on purpose, right?” Harry said, po-faced.

[Heidi Fernandez]

Twiddling her fork between her fingers, Heidi looked down at the plate of food in front of her and pushed it away, not hungry. Instead she picked up her goblet of pumpkin juice and took a tentative sip, feeling the freshness of it ooze through her body. Draco Malfoy was telling a joke a few seats down from where Heidi resided with the rest of the seventh year Slytherins; he was doing an impression, stamping on something and then touching his own nose and laughing. She smiled, amused, for a moment before turning her attention to the figure looming through the Great Hall doors. Harry Potter was striding into the room, blood covering his face and a look of annoyance in his eyes. Suddenly, Heidi knew what Malfoy was impersonating; he was showing his friends that he’d obviously broken Harry’s nose.

The Sorting was just about to begin, the new first years lining up.
“Who are Head Girl and Boy this year?” Heidi asked, addressing the question to anyone in the small group of people surrounding her, including Arthur Diggory, Warrington and towards the end, Cordelia Gold and Scarlett Maddox. Arthur's arm snaked around Heidi's waist, and gently––yet somehow, with a despairing ardor––pulled her towards him as his flawlessly chiseled jaws touched the back of her neck. He was, of course, teasing. Why not start the school year with a little passion? He gave her a little whisper, an answer to her question with a salacious innuendo. Silly jokes. An amused smile slid across her face as tilted her head towards him and whispered something back, a very quiet laugh escaping from her lips.
Her liquid dark eyes lingered for a moment on the Arthur before she gazed towards the Ravenclaw table, glancing at Pete Goldstein who was mouthing something to her.
Laughter erupted loudly from the group of Slytherins sitting around about Draco Malfoy as one of them told a joke. Heidi looked round, her eyes focusing towards the source of the noise. She wasn’t surprised to see Blaise Zabini smirking at her—he was perhaps the one person who she truly hated. Ever since he arrived at Hogwarts he’d been the rudest, most horrific person to her; eventually leading to a duel in her fifth year which had also ended with Arthur banging Zabini’s head against the wall for using the term ‘Mudblood’ against Heidi.

“Therefore, Professor Snape will be the new Defense Against the Dark Arts teacher. Now, please, eat!”

“Fuck’s sake, I have enough trouble passing that subject without having him breathing down my neck all the time,” Heidi said, looking down at her fingernails, squinting to check her nail polish wasn’t a tad tarnished from perfection. “At least with people like Lupin I could squeeze passes out of him.”
Looking down the table, Heidi’s face contorted with disgust as she watched Cordelia wolf down shovels of food. Something about that made Heidi feel ill; she’s not good with eating or seeing someone else eat tons of food in one go.

“You’re still doing N.E.W.T Defense, right?” Heidi suddenly asked, her solidly dark eyes washing over with undecipherable question, as she glanced at Arthur.
"You like it, you're actually asking me to lick you," Arthur teased. He's going to eat later, he wasn't hungry. He nodded at Heidi questions. "Yeah, why? You think I'd be taking Dark Arts?" He said sarcastically, rolling his eyes. That was a touchy subject, both of them were well aware of that.

"Because then I can copy all your answers," Heidi answered, smiling, showing her perfectly straight white teeth. Fluidly avoiding his second remark, she took another sip of pumpkin juice. Everywhere around the hall people were beginning to tuck into their delicious meals and the older students were all conversing politely with the new first years.
Heidi looked at the frightened first years of Slytherins and wondered how soon they’d get the low-down of what the real school was like; the things that Dumbledore doesn’t mention in his welcome speech. Licking her lips and tasting pumpkin juices, Heidi smiled, amused.

"Apparently someone's organized a Welcome Rave in the Forest, fifth years and above only." She said conversationally. "I hope the Gryffindors don't turn up."

(All speech and actions of Arthur Diggory are copyrighted to Melati Diran and she helped me with this. I didn't god-mod, yippeee!)

[Samantha Black]

As she entered the Great Hall, long after the sorting ceremony, Samantha Black pressed her back against the wall, her gaze skimming the crowd, scrutinizing the Gryffindor table, in search of her absolute best friend Marion Bontecou. The chatter of all Hogwarts students, old and young, filled her ears, making it difficult for her not to get distracted by what they were saying. Luna Lovegood, for example, who was sitting to her right, was telling Cho Chang something about her father going to an Eldred Worple book signing, yet only to find out he was a fake. Sam bit her bottom lip, finding Marion sitting in front of Dean Thomas and Ginny Weasley. Harry was located a dozen of seats to their left, in company of Ronald Weasley and Hermione Granger.

Samantha tried to push away the fact that Harry and her scarcely even spoke last year, or during the summer, and that it felt as though he attempted to forget that they had been inseparable during eight long years of their lives. Biting her tongue hard, for she had told herself several times that this was meaningless and not to dwell on the subject any longer, Sam edged her way towards Marion, Ginny and Dean, whom she usually spent her time with, since Harry was always acting so secretively and almost seemed to be purposely avoiding her. <i>Stop it,</i> Samantha told her brain, who seemed to have a brain of its own.

Taking a seat next to Marion, Samantha said ‘hi’s to both Dean and Ginny, and grinned amusingly at the fact that they were sitting so close that it looked like they were glued together. After filling her cup with pumpkin juice, she poked Marion’s thigh with her index finger, a thing Sam often did when she was about to say something she found rather interesting. “Guess what happened, this summer?” Sam asked, after catching the girl’s attention. “I was sending a letter to Fred,” She continued, ignoring both Ginny, Dean and Marion’s puzzled gazes at the fact that she might be having a private written conversation with Fred Weasley. “And my letter got mixed up, somehow, and Gwenog Jones ended up receiving it.” Sam finished, nodding fervently. “So she replied, and I replied, too, and I got free tickets to the next Holyhead Harpies Quidditch game!”