Most of the first week of classes had passed, leaving the children exhausted and confused as to how their professors could hand out so much homework and act like it was okay. It made no sense to them, especially since each teacher had to mark everyone's essays, from first to seventh year students. And the newbies had all received at least three essays to do over the weekend, with barely any time to sit around lazily and enjoy their first weekend at the castle.
"So much work," Peter Pettigrew whined to no one specifically, but himself, while seated within the Great Hall, hours before dinner. He was a first year student with blonde hair and a body that looked a little chubby since he was quite short. He was sat with most of his classmates, except he was tucked away in the corner. He snubbed the seat, in the belief that his friends, James, would not join them. But to his surprise, James' addiction to competition and being the perfect boy lead him to the Great Hall.
Peter had managed to keep an awkward quiet profile, despite his friendship circle. He was noticed and recognised for being friends with James and Sirius, but he was far more quiet than the other two. At least that was until he was seated near James Potter, Sirius Black or any Zion girl - the boys spoke too loudly to let him peacefully hide in silence; and the girls were famous for their dark heritage and for always talking through classes. The Zion's would work and talk during their lesson times, all of them but Eralia, who thought herself too mature to mess around during class. She would only talk to discuss the work or anything academic related; Peter was glad to have not been asked to work with her yet. The same could not be said for James, who sat beside the oldest silver-eyed girl in his Charms lesson, often being criticised for his efforts.
Peter had heard many stories about the Zion girls' ancestry, especially since many of his peers asked about it in their first lessons. The girls paid no attention to the narrative that had grown dull to them, and the professors made no effort to ask them about it. But the part of the whole ordeal that seemed unusual to Peter was the fact that many students started to create rumours about them and their own lives. Some claimed that the girls had mastered the Dark Arts, just as every Zion family member did, to boast about their pureblood mania. Others whispered that they were as ordinary as everyone else, and most likely stole the surname to pretend being someone important within the wizarding world. But Peter did not believe any of them, because they were nice to him, particularly Anya, who spent their last Potions lesson making quiet jokes with him as she messily completed her first potion with James Potter - a pairing that Professor Slughorn had arranged.
The first years had neglected the segregation of the houses as they sat together, surrounded around one table as they struggled with their first essay. Several seniors walked into the hall and commented on the familiar sense of struggle that they still dealt with, but learnt to quietly suffer from. Anya was sat near Peter as she sneakily looked at his notes, trying to compare her work to his, to see if she could steal anything from him. But he had no new information to offer, she copied all she could from him, just as he had done from her. Luckily, to her right was Phoebe who was trying to copy off of Remus Lupin, who was halfway done with his essay. Almost everyone around the table was copying someone else's work, but trying to be secretive about it.
"Dammit James!" Naomi Crowe, from Hufflepuff, scolded. Her ink box had bubbled and splattered over her hand. She was lucky it did not land on her homework, but her anger left her to continue insulting the boy. It was easy to blame any prank on him or his best friend, especially as they spent most of this week behaving like class clowns and teasing their friends. James, however, had a tough time trying to stop Sirius from harassing Severus Snap, a child who was determined to snobbishly prove himself better than the two boys. Of course, James successfully kept his friend from starting fights with Severus, but that did not stop their classmate from making foul comments about them.
"It wasn't me," whined James from the other side of the table. He was sat in the corner of the table, leaning over his homework and covering his answers to stop others from copying.
"Sirius, then!" Naomi shouted, trying to use a napkin to clean her hand. But the room fell silent when they realised there was no cocky response to her accusation, as there usually was.
Sahara lifted her head, "Where is he?" As soon as the question was asked, all eyes turned to look at James, Sirius' best friend, hoping he could provide an answer. Instead, he stayed focused on his essay, ignoring everyone else's fusses and complaints.
Naomi was still angry as she quietly complained about the difficulty of cleaning fast-drying ink off of her hand. Lily Evans spoke up, "I know a spell that could help take it off. I could teach it to you after I have finished this essay?"
Remus called him, "James." He was the tallest in the entire year, and stood out in more way than one. His scars seemed alluring but intimidating to everyone who looked at him, as they curiously tried to uncover the truth. Some started rumours about a possible ugly familial upbringing, others claimed he grew too fond of fights with other children prior to his arrival at Hogwarts. No one knew for certain what his story was, especially since he spent plenty of his time alone or in the company of quiet students that would not bother him much.
James hummed to notify Remus that he had heard him. But he did not look up from his work, he was almost done with his essay and he intended to finish it. He was on his last sentence, and squished it into the tiny space at the bottom of his parchment.
"Where is Sirius?" Eralia asked, her voice too familiar to the arrogant boy.
He looked up, "Somewhere, not too far away. Why?"
Naomi glared at the Gryffindor, raising her hand up, "Because he did this."
James laughed to himself as he watched his best friend enter the room, "Hey, buddy! Naomi here is mad at you for the ink hex."
Everyone turned around and watched Sirius walk towards his friend, smiling as he waved his parchment around. He ignored the previous statement and boasted about his diligence, "I finished it."
"Same," the tall, black-haired boy was flipping his parchment over to show him his work. His attention turned to Sirius' work, he noticed the slightly messy handwriting that was so big that it covered two pages effortlessly. His efforts contrasted James', whose words began to shrink towards the end. Sirius had worked in the Gryffindor common room. James was studying with him as well, but he left to join the other first years with their scheduled study meeting. At first, James thought he could use the help, while Sirius was cocky enough to admit he would be fine, but they both proved to be too good with their studies to not bother with the year-wide effort.
"Black!" Severus Snape called out, standing beside a furious Naomi.
"What do you want?" The long-haired boy asked coldly, glancing over his shoulder, trying hard to cover up his arrogance and privilege, the very traits Severus hated on him and James.
Naomi answered, after thanking Severus for talking for her, "You did this!"
Sirius furrowed his brows as James began to pack his belongings. He finally spoke, "And why would I? Do I even know you?"
His tone forced everyone to stop working and to look up, all eyes were on him. Anya and Phoebe watched Naomi, before they noticed Eralia moving to her roommate's side. The oldest Zion spoke, "Sirius, she is my roommate!"
He still looked unbothered, "And? What does that mean to me?"
Remus now stood tall, folding his arms as he watched his peers fight. Peter and Anya exchanged a glance before they looked ahead. The students were now growing furious with Sirius' attitude, especially as they wanted to see how the issue would be resolved. Naomi and Eralia were both enraged as they glared at him, trying to expose him for the prankster he was.
"Look, if I ever pulled a prank on anyone, it wouldn't be that small and I would not be denying it. Whoever did that is clearly just a fraud trying to get me into trouble," he explained, pulling James by his shirt as he made his way out the hall. They did not bother waiting for anyone to reply, instead, they left the crowd gobsmacked at his reaction.
Peter whispered to himself, "If James and Sirius did not do it, who did?"
Anya spoke up, "Eralia, isn't that your ink box?" She was pointing at the silver box with birds engraved into it, each of them felt like a smooth, three-dimensional mould that was stuck against the box.
"Yeah, it is. Why?" Eralia replied, looking at her cousin with a confused expression.
She shrugged, "No reason." The silver-eyed fox looked at her best friend and grimaced, confused and ashamed.
"We messed up," Phoebe whispered. The girls continued to mumble about how their plan failed. Amidst their conversation, they failed to realise that Peter Pettigrew was eavesdropping on them, and that Remus Lupin could hear them and was smirking to himself as he wrote more of his essay. He did not encourage the habit of pranking others, but he admired their determination to get the two infamous prank stars into trouble. He quietly swore to himself that he would not expose them, just as Peter did, he wanted to know whether they would continue messing with the two boys or would leave them alone.
Anya began packing her belongings, "I will meet you later, Pheebs." She ran out of the room with her bag before anyone could say anything.
"What was that all about?" Nahara asked, looking back at her cousin's friend.
Phoebe shrugged as Remus answered for her, "She ran off to the library, needed to do more research." Phoebe thanked him quietly before returning to stealing his answers for her homework, but in her own words.
Angela nudged Remus, "Do we need to do more reading for this essay?" Her words made him look up at everyone who anxiously watched him, waiting for an answer that would settle their nerves and not force them to panic. The last thing any of them wanted was to do more work for a single subject. Remus, realising what his answer did to everyone, quickly shook his head. The hall echoed with a series of sighs as everyone continued to discuss their answers, sharing any new ideas they had. They made no effort to lower their voices when their teachers walked into the room, but the professors ignored them and continued with their day. They knew all too well that eventually the students would learn how to buddy up for homework or work alone, but that was not going to happen on the first day.
"I am going to go and look for Anya," Kylennia said, grabbing her things and leaving the room. She made her way to the Ravenclaw common room, deciding she would drop her belongings before she would look for her roommate. On entrance, she saw Anya sat by the fire, on the floor, listening to Eric Elyas as he explained to her what chapters she should read and what the extracts meant. He refused to tell her the answer, but lead her to them.
"Kylennia," Anya said her name as her friend joined her on the floor, spreading her parchment on the table.
"I thought you went to the library," her friend stated.
Anya shook her head, "I thought of it, but it doesn't matter if I find clever things to say, I don't know how to say them."
"I did not finish my essay, I do not know what to write," she was frowning out of disappointment, "I don't think I was put into the right house, I can't even figure this out."
Eric smiled as he leaned over to her, "Hey, it's okay. None of us were born smart or knew hot to write essays when we started. You learn to perfect the skill as you write more of them. I can help you, I can give you tips to write them."
Kylennia nodded as she attentively began listening to the third year student. He made sure to explain to her how to structure each essay and where to find the information and how to reference the sources they used. He also made sure to proofread their essays when they were done, alongside listening to them explain what they wrote in each paragraph. He was patient with them, and they welcomed his advice.