Wretched little beggar

New Habits

Finally, after meeting Peeves the Poltergeist, the first year gryffindors entered their tower. They had gone through the painting of a fat woman in a pink dress, that had swung forward after Percy Weasley had told it the password.

In the common room, the girls were directed up a staircase toward their dormitories, the boys up another. At the top of a spiral staircase, the girls found their room. Almost all the space was occupied by five four-posters beds with deep red velvet curtains. Upon seeing this much of the color, a painful reminiscence hit her, and she had to clutch her head in pain. Thankfully, as she was the last one to come in the room, none of the other girls noticed. Three of them were already chatting excitedly together, while the last one, the bushy haired girl that had kept whispering useless things before the feast, was already on her bed, reading.

Ten minutes later, they all had put their pyjamas on (except M, for she had none) and were in their respective beds. The young girl hadn't said a word to anyone, and no one had said a word to her. But as she was laying on her horribly red bed, wide awake and thinking quietly of her day, the girls kept whispering and giggling stupidly. Soon, she had had enough of it. She silently slipped out of bed. She got out of her dormitory, down the cold rock stairs, and into the now empty common room. There, she hesitated for a while, wondering if she should stay there until the other girls in her dormitory fell asleep, or if she should explore the castle. Finally, she decided for the first option. Her whole body ached from her uncomfortable previous night.

She sat down in one of the red armchairs, and stared into the red flames. At one point, she slipped into a dreamless sleep.

When M woke up, she felt completely rested. And she realized that she had slept better than she had in more than a year. Through the window, she could see the sun slowly peeking out from behind the hills. The young girl guessed it was around 6:30 AM, meaning that the early risers were sure to come down soon.

Sure enough, a few minutes later, the red-haired prefect from the previous day appeared at the bottom of the boys staircase, already perfectly dressed in his uniform. He didn't notice the small figure in the armchair in front of the fire, and sat down with a book, trying to get ahead of the program. M sighed, slightly jealous. Then she got out of the common room, and made her way to the great hall for breakfast.

Over the course of the next few days, the young pickpocket slowly got used to her new life. Every night, she would sneak out of her dorm, and either explore the castle or sit in one of the armchairs like the first night. Some mornings, she could be found asleep in some strange places, sometimes on the other side of school from the gryffindor tower. On one of these occasions, she had been found by the school caretaker, Filch. She had snuck out of his grasp before the man had been able to bring her to her head of house, but M had understood the lesson and was a bit more careful as to where she fell asleep.

Anyways, no one seemed to care much about her, and though some first years had tried to approach her, they had quickly given up seeing the apparently cold facade the young girl put up. M didn't mind. Friends were a weakness anyway.

During the days, she would attend class like her fellow classmates. She sat alone, in the back of the class, and none of the teachers seemed to notice her, except when they passed the register, and gave a start at her name. But, surprisingly enough, M paid attention to every word that was said in class, trying to fulfill an unknown thirst for knowledge. Maybe it was the fact that she had never been able to go to a normal school, or maybe living in the streets had made her naturally curious, but the young girl realized she wanted to learn all she could about this magic.

But as hard as she tried, she was always a step behind. Teachers would often ask their students to read pages from their books, but M, having neither the capacity to read or the books themselves, gazed out the window during these moments.

On the morning of the first day, M realized she needed a uniform in order to blend in. Having no moral opposition to stealing, she simply snuck into her dormitory while the other girls were still sleeping, and took the neatly folded uniform of the closest to the door. It was slightly too big for her petite frame, but it had to do. Unbeknownst to the small thief, this had caused quite some ruckus in the dormitory that morning, until the girl went down and professor McGonagall provided her with a new uniform.

And all was well, until her first potions class.

It was the first Friday, and M had woken in a small nook, probably a broom cupboard of sorts, that was hidden behind the tapestry of a drunken monk on the fourth floor. She had stumbled onto it by accident, tripping and hitting the right rhum barrel with her elbow, and had decided that at least there, no one would bother her.

After a quick breakfast in an almost deserted great hall, she made her way to the dungeons, where the potions class took place. She was almost an hour early, but arrived right on time, having accidently taken a staircase that led somewhere different on a Friday, and had accidently ended up at the top of the astronomy tower.

Like the other teachers, the potions master, professor Snape, started the class by passing the register. And like most of them, he stopped when he reached M.

-"There appears to be an ... error on here. A ... randomly written letter. An M." he said softly.

The bushy haired girl raised her hand.

-"Oh well. I shall signal this to professor Dumbledore." he drawled.

-"Wait, sir, excuse me..."

-"Miss... Granger is it? I do not remember having required your help. Now, is Mr...."

-"But really Professor! The girl named M is here, in the back of the class. She raised her hand when you called her name, if you had just looked!" said Hermione, pointing to the small thief in the darkest corner of the class.

M had to admit that she was grateful to the other gryffindor, but despised the unnecessary attention.

-"Miss Granger! Five points from gryffindor. If you think you can teach this class better than me, then come up here. Otherwise, shut up."

The bushy haired girl looked down at her hands, tears filling her eyes.

Throughout the class, things didn't get better, neither for M or the gryffindors. Snape put them all in pairs, except M and Hermione who stayed on their own, and set them to mixing up a simple potion for curing boils.

But to M's despair, he gave no oral explanations, and asked them to read the information from their textbooks. The young girl tried to see what her classmates were doing, but ended up mixing up the steps, and finally caused an explosion, covering herself and half the class in a brownish goo.

Snape spun around to look at the troublemaker.

-"Pott- girl! Do you not know how to read? I've never seen a worse potioneer! Two house points for your pure stupidity! And next class, you will be banned from practice, and observe how Mr. Malfoy is doing. Now - Scourgify." he said, with a flick of his wand.

The goo disappeared, leaving everything sparkling clean - except M. The young girl itched to yell at the man, but simply stormed out of the class, took a secret passageway hidden behind a tapestry, and left the castle altogether.

She walked for a bit, and finally sat down at the edge of the lake. She gingerly touched her sticky cheek, and was surprised to find a solitary tear running down it.

A/N: So... this is the new chapter. Really late I know, sorry. Plus, I actually did this in like the past two days but I had a bit of a writer's block, and mostly... well... I'm lazy ? So, I hope you enjoyed it, and I promise I'll try to update more often!