Hufflepuff Common Room

Well, their day of fun had gone awry. Whoops.

It had all been fine! Wendy loved spending time with her siblings while in school and often tried to ensure they all still had family time. She had told her siblings to meet her out at the Great Lake, and she had brought biscuits in the hopes of keeping them there. Simon had stayed for a whopping four minutes before lying about having work to do - he never seemed to want to be around people anymore. Pippa, twelve yeas old and nosy as anything, hadn't taken that well. They bickered. Then they scuffled, then...

SPLASH.

"SIII-MON! COME BACK HERE!"

Now Wendy followed her little sister as quickly as she could. Pippa stormed through the common room, sopping wet, her blonde pigtails dripping with water, drenched to the bone. "He's obnoxious, Wendy! I can't stand him sometime!"

Wendy followed after, trying to grab her sister's hand, holding out her small basket full of biscuits. "Oh, c'mon, Pippa! It was an accident. He bumped you, that's all. Take a biscuit-"

"I'll tell you what you can do with your biscuits-"

Wendy gasped, stopping in her tracks. "Pippa!" came the scandalized gasp.

The younger Fudge was gone. Wendy heaved a sigh - the job of the eldest sister never seemed to be finished. She turned round and spotted Christian and Matilda. She smiled warmly. "Siblings are lovely, aren't they." She glanced down at her basket, before holding it out. "Biscuit? Otherwise, they are going to waste."

Christian was starting to say that he agreed with her take on flying. "Yeah, it's not exactly the safest thing in the-"

But then two students appearing to have a bit of an argument burst in and it took a moment for the seventh year to register who it was. He had never really had a problem with anyone from the Fudge family, but he could definitely admit to being surprised by the conversation they were having. Loudly. His eyebrows rose but he tried to cover his expression when Wendy turned to look towards him and his new friend. He did consider her to be a friend, if only because they were in the same house and were getting on well enough so far. Why bother worrying past that when he had no reason to?

"Um," he replied slowly, trying to cover his distaste for the conversation being broken up. "I think I'm all right, thanks."

Matilda's face stayed fixed with pure horror. It was obviously her worst fear, even the conversation about flying made her shake. Christian started to speak when the common room door opened and in came two witches. They were arguing and Matilda watched with only mild interest. Brat she thought fleetingly as she watched the younger of the pair storm out of the room.

"Biscuit? Otherwise, they are going to waste."

Matilda just stared with her mouth slightly open. She was the friendly type, just like the new witch seemed to be, but she was also a prankster. She remembered the time she had given the Quidditch team pot brownies, and laughed, but shook her head at the offer as she turned back to Christian. She figured that she might have sounded rude laughing at the witch's offering so she added as an after thought "I'm stuffed. Had a big lunch."

Her eyes wandered back to her companion, who also declined the snacks, then she gestured for him to continue what he was saying as she added to him "About those maddening broomsticks... Would you ever ride again?" the forlorn look in her eyes was almost comical. It was as if they were talking about death himself, and not just a simple broom ride.

Wendy hadn't expected much in the way of a warm welcome from Christian, of course, as they weren't exactly friends but not exactly strangers. It was that awkward in between that school often created, which made the social circuit of adolescence and puberty all the more dreadful. Nobody seemed willing to invest into these relationships, so they remained in a limbo of awkwardness and limited knowledge on someone you had known for years.
 
But she and Matilda were friends. Not close enough to be totally honest with each, which hurt Wendy as she knew Tilly tried to hide things from her. But they were in the same year, and had often relied on each other in classes and outside of them, and the seeming indifference she was getting from the other girl stung a bit. She probably wouldn’t have noticed nor felt, had it not been for the rejection she had just suffered from her sister.
 
“Right,” she said, trying to maintain the pleasant tone. She turned and set the biscuits on a table. “For anyone who might want them,” she informed the other two, smiling. She followed her sister’s path, swallowing a lump in her throat. Studying. She could do that. Right.