| Dwarf
Join Date: Dec 2004 Location: #8000FF
Posts: 35,308
Hogwarts RPG Name:
Amelia "Mia" Adair
Slytherin Sixth Year
Hogwarts RPG Name:
Leigh Upstead
Hufflepuff Fifth Year  x11
|  Just a lot of internal monologue. Sorry. x_x be curious, not judgmental
There was no piggyback ride into the Great Hall for Sophie Brown for the first time since she was a first year.
Zander could have kept the tradition going, certainly, but he was plenty busy on his own stressing out over his Head Boy duties. She shared those same duties as Head Girl, sure, but unlike him, those duties didn't faze her one bit. She would do what needed to be done when the opportunities presented themselves - there was no reason to psych herself out about them ahead of time. So she'd helped usher students to the school, detached from Zander, and put on a happy face for the student body at large as everyone filtered into the Great Hall.
But no piggyback ride. No piggyback ride meant no Mo, no Jun, and no Tobes.
She felt alone.
She supposed that was the sacrifice that had to be made when one became Head Girl. There was less time for fun, less opportunity for making memories and enjoying oneself, more things that had to be sacrificed. The Grey Lady was already at her house table, and the ghost had always scowled in disapproval of her piggyback ride entrances in the past, so if nothing else... at least she wouldn't be having daggers glared at her this time around.
But before moving to take a seat at her table, Sophie stayed back by the doors, scanning the Great Hall with a sense of emptiness, a sense of longing for days past and missing the faces of those who had graduated before her. Tobes, Cat, Mo, Elodie, Jun, Aidan, Nigel, Eden, Marigold, Kace... she even missed Gabe. And when her gaze turned up to the staff table, she noted the missing faces there, too, faces of her favorite professors who had left. Fuller, Thompson, Elwood, Bentley, Hadley, even Truebridge, and Quig...
...ley...
...QUIGGLES WAS GONE???
Sophie Brown's mouth DROPPED when she realized that there was a WOMAN sitting in the Charms seat next to Dakest where Quiggles should've been, and in an instant, it was taking everything within the Head Girl not to cry. QUIGGLES LEFT. AND HE DIDN'T EVEN SAY GOODBYE TO HER.
WHAT KIND OF WORLD WAS THIS.
A terrible one, it seemed, a world where a professor didn't say goodbye to his favorite student and let her find out that he was GONE on the FIRST DAY BACK AT SCHOOL. The worst. But... it was reassuring to see that Dakest WAS there after the incident this summer, especially considering how he'd neglected to let her know just what had happened... but... not her business. He didn't owe her anything. He didn't have to tell her anything. Must not have been TOO bad if he was here, although... he was a fighter, no doubt, and not a quitter, so she had an inkling that the world could be going up in flames and he'd still be doing what he had to do even in the face of danger and evil. Brave man, he was. She respected him for it.
There was a strong part of her that wanted to approach the table. She wanted to go be with the familiar adult faces who made her feel comfortable - Dakest, Culloden, Flammy, Kitridge, Tanner, Botros, Moxley... but the vacancies of both Quiggles and Thompson not up there with them hurt. Sophie loved moving forward and getting the opportunity to show what she was made of in the face of change, to prove herself to everyone and let them know she was strong and brave and could handle anything... but deep down, this change hurt. No Tobes and no Javy and no--
No, Sophie Brown. Stop it. You have a job to do. Make them proud.
Swallowing the rising lump in her throat, Sophie put on a friendly smile as she subconsciously straightened her Head Girl badge, smoothed down her hair, and walked down the length of the Ravenclaw table, trying to figure out where... where should the Head Girl sit? It was easier when Tobes was with her because he would just drop her off near her friends and then they'd sit together and she didn't have to decide, but this was... tricky. She wanted the comfort of friends, but what about the new kids? They would need comfort, too, probably. Would the new kids flock to the girl with the Head Girl badge? They probably wouldn't even notice she was wearing it, so they would probably just sit wherever there was an empty seat.
So that meant she had to like... go visit them once they joined her. Make some rounds. Not too fun, but it made her choice of where to sit a lot easier - she ended up walking down the entire length of the table and sitting close to the staff table so she could have a good view as the sorting ceremony took place and she did take comfort in being near to all the professors. It empowered her. But there she was, front and center, and ignoring the lump that still threatened to rise every time she thought of the faces of Tobes, Cat, Mo, Piers, Javy...
When the ceremony began, their new sortees seemed like quite the characters - especially the one who was not sorted into Ravenclaw but made a big scene out of insisting that she was, then the poor girl even joined the house table like it was where she belonged. Admirable, really, but of all the other houses a kid could've gotten, wasn't Gryffindor just about the second best? Sophie threw a glance over to Zander at the Gryffindor table, a helpless look as if to say, This is your housemate, your problem, not mine. But... if she insisted upon staying, Soph supposed she would step in. Try to help. See if she could talk the girl into going to her REAL house table... but... if she was awfully nice to the girl, wouldn't she just want to stay a Ravenclaw? See, it was VITAL that Zander be nice to her and show her that Gryffindor was the place to BE. He had the charm, the looks, the personality to get the girl on the same page as him, so it was ALL YOU, ZANDER ADAIR.
Three new arrivals came shortly after - two girls, quite timid, but neither seemingly as appalled at being there than the boy with the dark hair who joined them, his hands over his ears like the noise of the Great Hall would burst his ear drums. There were already people flocking to him, their naturally curious Ravenclaw instincts kicking in and overriding their sense of logic that perhaps the boy needed time to be left alone... but instead of stepping in and talking to any of these people, Sophie Brown's gaze bypassed the sorting ceremony as it continued and lingered up at the staff table, clacking her teeth together lightly as she tried to catch the eye of either Dakest or Culloden to give them a little smile and wave.
It turned out that she wasn't so good at this whole... being the oldest thing. She'd always surrounded herself with older friends, older people, and now without that influence, she couldn't be a chameleon to the leadership qualities they possessed. Now, she had to harness them all on her own.
Terrifying.
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