Chapter Text
Since arriving at platform 11 and 3/4 Vivien hadn't had time to stop and think, from the train journey where she met 5 other muggle borns to the boat trip which was fun if a little unnecessary to the anxiety inducing sorting assembly. Why they felt the need to sort the already terrified students in front of the entire school one by one Vivien had no idea. Then there was the dinner, from what Vivien had heard from the other muggle borns she shared a train carriage with she expected the ravenclaws to be reserved she didn't really expect them to have much of a sense of humour but right now Vivien was listening to an older ravenclaw girl explain that their stuffy sounding motto "wit beyond measure is man's greatest treasure" was actually a dick joke (apparently the length of a mans wit was a reference to his y'know in Shakespearean times) and deciding that she was very glad to have been sorted into ravenclaw after all. All the same Vivien felt relieved when, finally, the new ravenclaws were shepherded into the common room. She followed the crowd of girls up the staircase, well they were stairs for the first few steps she took and then the steps disappeared underneath her and they became a slide. It must've been some sort of prank she assumed except the other students looked just as confused as she felt.
"What happened" she heard someone ask.
"I didn't see any guys going up there" another voice answered "maybe the spell is I dunno glitching" suggested another ravenclaw
Vivien tried three more times to get up the stairs but every time the stairs turned into a slide. She was starting to panic. Vivien was a very shy person, she didn't like having to ask for help especially from these older kids she didn't know so she ended up hiding out in a corner of the common room debating sleeping on the floor only all her stuff was upstairs. She was really panicking now and then as if the universe hated her or something the coolest girl she'd ever seen sat down next to her. She must be a 3rd year at least Vivien thought, she had bright blue hair and a lot of piercings and her eyes were outlined by graphic eyeliner.
"Hey" she greeted.
"H-hey" replied Vivien uncertainly.
"I'm Astrid" the girl said
"Vivien " uttered Vivien in response
"Are you alright you should really be getting to bed" she said.
"I can't the stairs don't let me" Vivien explained trying not to let on how stressed she was about this.
"Ohhh" said the girl understanding dawning in her eyes, "hang on I can take care of that"
She pulls out her wand and Vivien flinched slightly as she muttered an incantation "try again" she instructed. Vivien placed one tentative step on the stair case then another and it held "oh thank y-" Vivien turned around to thank her but she's disappeared. That was odd she thought to herself as she quietly slipped into her four-poster bed.
The next morning Vivien was awoken by the clambering of various first years getting ready for their first official day of Hogwarts Vivien pulled on her brand new uniform and cloak, she didn't like freshly new clothes their was something wrong with the texture but what can you do, everything's new at some point. Some of the first years had already made friends probably while Vivien was stuck in the common room so she composed herself outside the hall mentally preparing for the fact she'd probably be sat awkwardly by herself when she stepped into the great hall a voice called her name she turned to see Astrid beckoning her over. She looked different in uniform without all her piercings and eyeliner.
"Everyone this is Vivien" Astrid announced as Vivian joined her at the table. She was being introduced to a group of kids who all had similar style to Astrid and all from different years, Vivien found out that Astrid was actually a second year. There was also Max with hair dyed jet black, Zoella who had customized her uniform with various pink badges and Samantha whose eyes were a striking shade of green.
"Hi" Vivien said shyly
"Don't be shy we don't bite" Zoella said, Vivien found this half patronising and half inviting
"Not unless you ask nicely joked Max. He was promptly hit on the arm by Samantha
"There are children present" she said in a stage whisper.
"Sorry about them" Astrid said lightly "so first day today are you nervous?" Asked Astrid.
"A little" admitted Vivien.
"Don't worry about it the teachers here are pretty cool well most of them" Samantha said.
"Most of them?" Enquired Vivien.
"Here, show us your timetable and we'll tell you everything you need to know" offered Samantha. Vivien rustled around in the pockets of her robe until she pulled out the piece of parchment that had come with her invitation to hogwarts.
"Okay McGonagall's nice as long as you don't mess about in her lessons don't be late though, flitwicks really nice don't worry about him at all and oof professor Snape well he's..." Trailed off Samantha
"He's what" asked Vivien heart hammering.
"Your muggle born right?" Samantha asked.
"Yeah how can you tell" she asked
"The general look of awe you have whenever you see anything magical " Samantha replied
"Snape isn't keen on muggle borns" Astrid said
"No one says anything but we all know it's true" Max added
"Remember how he reacted when I- well we don't really have time to get into the whole protest story right now" Astrid said flicking her blue hair over her shoulders. Vivien got the distinct impression that she wanted to hear all of Astrid's stories unfortunately the bell went and she had to rush to class. She followed the advice Astrid and her friends gave her to a T arriving early for McGonagall's class and keeping her head down during Snape's. Not everyone seemed to have gotten the message two boys from gryffendor arrived late to professor McGonagall's class Hermione Granger who she ended up sitting next to during all her classes since neither of them had any friends sighed and rolled her eyes but Vivien was too busy biemg impressed with the fact neither of them were attempting to melt into the carpet despite the fact everyone was looking at them to be exasperated with their timekeeping.
At lunch Hermione wanted to check out the library and, not wanting to be labelled a try hard, Vivien decided to leave her to it hoping to find Astrid and her friends again but she didn't see them anywhere in the dining hall. To kill time she decided to wander the grounds of Hogwarts keeping her head down and feeling slightly embarrassed that she was on her own. Fifteen minutes before the end of lunch she spotted a flash of Astrid's blue hair and followed her to a corridor
"Astrid" she called out deciding she would prefer the embarrassment of being clingy over the embarrassment of being alone.
"Vivien hi" she greeted "I was just going to meet the others how come your here?" She asked
"I couldn't find my friend" Vivien said, not wanting to admit she had nowhere else to go.
"You can come hang out with us if you want?" Offered Astrid she was making her way up some spindly stairs that Vivien hadn't seen before.
"Sure but are you sure we're allowed up their" Vivien asked not wanting to get into any trouble.
"Don't worry professor Tralawny lets us hang out here as long as we don't make a mess.
Vivien followed Astrid up the stairs and arrived in a classroom that resembled a small cafe with all the teapots and tables
"I've dragged Vivien to our hideaway " announced Astrid as she entered the room.
"Hi again Vivien I see Snape didn't eat you" Samantha called out.
"Not yet" Vivien replied perching nervously on a seat near the door. They talked about how they found the first day and then Vivien asked the question that had been bugging her since last night.
"What spell did you do so I could get to the girls dorm last night" Asked Vivien.
"A cloaking spell it shouldn't wear off until at least the end of the year so you don't need to worry about not being able to get in to the dorms again" explained Astrid.
"But why did you need to do a cloaking spell?" Asked Vivien.
"The spell is designed to only let girls into the dorm" explained Astrid which didn't really explain much because Vivien was a girl wasn't she? She didn't like to think about it too often and sure she didn't exactly love being called a girl or having to do "girly" things but she had accepted it as a fact of life that Vivien was a girl wasn't she?
"The spell you did doesn't cause any side effects does it because when I was in professor Snape a class I couldn't breathe and I started shaking and I didn't feel to good" explained Vivien.
"Did you go to madame pomfrey?" Asked Max.
"No I didn't want to cause a fuss" Vivien explained
"Have you experienced that before" asked Astrid"because you can get a pass to leave lessons if you want"
"I don't really like asking for things" Vivien said
"Well if it happens again you can always come up here Professor Tralawny has herbs that will help you relax" said Astrid
"Which isn't nearly as dodgy as it sounds" chimed in Max.
"Max do not discuss drugs in front of the 11 year old" said Samantha in mock anger.
"we can ask Tralawny if it's okay for you" offered Astrid. Vivien wasn't really sure why they were being so nice.
"You would do that?" Asked Vivien
"Yeah of course" Astrid said.
The rest of the term went fairly well Vivien split her time between hanging out with Hermione in the library and increasingly more often Harry and Ron as well as Astrid and the others. Professor Tralawny was really nice to hear as well even if she did regularly predict terror raining down on Vivien's family (apparently this was normal) she learnt a lot from Astrid and the others, stuff you wouldn't learn from lessons. Vivien learnt how hard it was to get a job as a muggle born she learned how to get into the astronomy tower at night (strictly speaking this was against the rules but, as Samantha said. Some rules are invented for the sake of those with no common sense like no wrappers outside because people didn't put their trash in the bin or no food in the dorms because some people forgot to throw away rotten food and it was fine to ignore rules like this as long as you used common sense and didn't get caught. Sometimes the group would discuss stuff going on in hogwarts and the magical things in general for example professor Snape picked pure bloods roughly 6 times as often to answer questions than muggle borns none of them really thought to hard on it though there were much more interesting things going on like who liked who and whether Max who was the oldest of the group would smuggle butter beers to hogwarts for them although Samantha, the mum friend of the group, insisted Vivienne waited until third year at least before having any alcohol. Vivien started to feel more confident especially when Astrid helped her with her wardrobe suggesting she try outfits that made her feel more masculine and Max taught her his handshake and called her bro she was trying not to dwell on this.
Everything was going great until the incident. The incident occured one day when Vivienne bumped into a Slytherin "sorry" she said flustered
"Watch where your going mudb-" the Slytherin didn't even manage to finish his sentence before a fist collided with his face shutting him up the fist belonged to Astrid.
Vivien remembered shaking outside dumbledores office waiting to hear if Astrid would be expelled luckily she got away with just a week of detentions.
After the incident Vivien was a lot more cautious walking around the school and she spent a lot more time in Tralawny's classroom other than that she had a decent first year at Hogwarts she barely thought about the whole stair case debacle what with following Astrid and her crazy band of friends around.
"Let's all write to each other this summer" Samantha said as the 5 friends waited for their train back home.
"Okay what's everyone's address" asked Vivienne "oh Astrid you live so close to me" Vivienne exclaimed.
"Really?" Asked Astrid.
"Yep we could hang out in the holidays uhh if you want to that is" Vivienne suggested.
"Of course I want to let's do it" Astrid said eagerly
"Cool" Vivienne said.
Before leaving for the summer Vivienne made a mental note to look up some of the bands and stuff she'd heard the others talking about.
"Bye" said Viviene
"I'll miss you" Astrid called.
"Your staying at her house next week" pointed out Max.
"I'll still miss you" called Astrid.
"I'll miss you to" Vivienne said blushing.