THE COMMON ROOM,
Monday evening,
———
I've never enjoyed being a student. I tried my best to feel intelligent enough, often masked by cockiness in my magical abilities. A facade to hide how I struggled to keep up.
I was a Slytherin for gods sake. There was the expectation that we were great wizards, naturally.
Ravenclaws were seen as the most intelligent simply because of their ability to learn. It was nothing inherently natural. It was a stereotype that was created by their desire to expand beyond themselves. Many of them enjoying challenge and learning.
Hufflepuffs had their own talents, but there was nothing blazingly impressive there with how they presented their intelligence. It was more relaxed, there were greater things to them. It was emotional intelligence over academic in the Hufflepuff house.
A smart Gryffindor was often the loudest in the room. Hand up at all times. Blurting out answers and impatient with their knowledge. But just like Hufflepuff, there were greater traits than intelligence within their house. They're practical people often feeling suffocated by a classroom, learning through experience.
Slytherin... I sometimes struggled to resonate with my own house expectations. I sometimes questioned whether I was placed in the wrong house entirely.
Cunning.
Ambitious.
Determined.
Leadership.
There was always the sense that those belonging to Slytherin were natural wizards. They possessed the born flare and skill for greatness, that only others could attempt to learn.
If Slytherins were so powerful, why did I often feel so meek?
Why was I struggling to adjust with catching up with only a months worth of work? I had been excused from the projects and essays...so why did it feel so helplessly overwhelming staring at all of the workbooks? Especially knowing I only had to write notes about each section, that had already been carefully picked out for me.
I never had a confidence issue before this accident. I knew I wasn't some spectacular witch, that I wasn't the idealistic Slytherin... and so I could only put my new found insecurity to exhaustion.
It was the only difference in me.
I still felt as if I was experiencing brain fog, like I had forgotten something about myself.
Forgotten what makes me a Slytherin and why I had pride in that.
I had long stopped questioning why I was here, so why the revival of my insecurities and anxiety that I had long said goodbye to?
Cunning?
It sounds deceitful. Two faced. Which is nothing I've ever resonated with. Sure, I haven't ever been a people pleaser and I have told the odd lie here and there to get my way - but, cunning? No.
Ambitious?
I wasn't competitive. I've never had the thrill of winning or disappointed in losing. Games were only trivial to me and there hasn't been anything outside of competition that has sparked ambition inside of me. To be ambitious sounds consuming and I now knew how lost I felt within consumption.
Determined?
I suppose I got a glimpse of my determination on the weekend searching for answers, staying up until my eyelids felt too heavy to read. But I couldn't resonate with that word completely, I believe everyone would behave the same if they were in my position. Perhaps only a Hufflepuff would 'let it go' and let it stay in the past.
Leadership?
I have always felt entirely comfortable with blending in. Just being another person in the group. I don't feel offended at being told what to do. Sometimes I won't listen to orders others give me but it's also very rare I give them out. I didn't have a desire to lead or be seen as in charge. I didn't care enough.
So what made me a Slytherin, because it wasn't my natural born talent or blood. I was born to a Muggle family.
"Stupid." I rested my head upon the table I was sat at. Pages of notes scribbled out in front of me. My frustration forcing me to have a break.
I was in the Slytherin common room, and it was after dinner. There were a few other students scattered around but it was rather empty. Most people were in their dorm rooms by now; including Ramona who thought it was way too cold in the common room to linger.
It was quite cold. The fire only reached certain parts of the room and the November weather meant the castle in general felt freezing. When you add the fact our common room was partly under the black lake, even the noises around us felt chilly. The silence of being underwater felt icy in the winter and refreshing in the summer, when the fish were a little more lively.
The curtains always stayed drawn in the winter months too, many of us not wanting to admit the darkness of the lake outside some of the windows felt spooky. It was nice to see the green hue coming in, watch the tall impressive weeds wave like wind in the water, in the summer but...the lack of light in the winter meant you saw nothing unless it was directly in front of you.
The common room was comforting, despite the comments other houses may have made in assumption. Others assumed ours was all stone and steel, just green and silver and absolutely no warmth.
They were wrong.
Our floor was covered in different patterned rugs. Rich, comforting greens mixed with brighter like fresh leaves. All keeping the floor warm and cushioned.
Our sofas were deep brown, almost black chesterfields. With silver cushions and throws covering them. To match the cracks in the leather that had formed over years of students sitting on them.
We had warm lighting. Lamps scattered anywhere they could. All emitting an orange glow. Which other students believed we had a strict green light only policy. The only green light came from the fireplace, where our flames were enchanted into emerald embers.
Sure, the windows looking out to the black lake felt cold in the winter. But in the summer it let through rippled sunbeams, green iridescent shimmers that seemed to spill into the room in glittering reflections of the separate world outside our windows. Our dorm rooms had regular windows - risen above the cellar level that our common room was on.
Not everything was hidden in dingy, gothic, moody darkness. Our common room was as cold as the rest of the castle could be at times, us Slytherins weren't reptiles and even then, most need warmth.
It did bother me sometimes. How others would react once they knew you belonged to the house that wore green.
Some expect you to be a genius, like I mentioned.
Others expect you to be pure blood and are shocked to find that isn't always the case.
A handful of people expect you to know exactly what you want.
Most assume you'll be rude. Elitist. Have a sense of hard headed arrogance surrounding you.
That's the assumption that rubbed me up the wrong way the most. But for now, the expectation to be a Slytherin savant was eating at me. A heavy weight upon my shoulders that seemed to dominant any other assumption of what it meant to be draped in emerald green.
The frustration hit. The scribbles I had attempted to make sense of starting to merge together. No sense of order on the page I had previously seen the flow of; it was now all clunky instead.
I let out a small sob of anger.
I couldn't make sense of anything. All this working feeling like the cherry on the top of a shit sundae.
I pushed the books across the table, so that I could fully submit to collapsing into my crossed arms and let a couple of tears angrily, but silently fall. Hiding my face from anyone who could potentially walk past.
I couldn't do it all, not without help and I didn't want to ask for help.
It all just felt cripplingly embarrassing and so inconvenient to all of the exams I would have to begin taking towards the end of the academic year.
I just had visions of having to retake my O.W.L.s because I stupidly wandered into the forbidden forest and missed a month of one of the most important years at Hogwarts.
I sat there for a while. Head in hands. Shoulders tense and books scattered around me; I sat as the tears dried and I could finally take a shaken breath and feel some of the frustration escape my lungs, and that's when I felt a nudge, before I could sit upright on my own accord.
I glanced up from my hunched over position to see a hand pushing a notebook towards me.
I looked up to see who the hand belonged to, and he had already begun walking away.
Regulus Black.
I sat up fully, brushed the tear stains off of my face and moved the notebook closer towards me.
O.w.l.s prep : r . a . b
I quickly opened up the book to sneak a peak. This isn't a required course book, it was a personal notebook.
Regulus had made a beautifully detailed and simple guide to each of his lessons and the course work that was to be taught (pages left blank) and what had already been taught. Many lessons I shared with him.
There were inserts to everything he had learnt. Annotations. Colour coded. Slightly smudged hand writing was the only flaw I could detect.
He had simplified all of the horrifically wordy and complicated materials into short paragraphs with his own reflections attached.
All in one nicely presented, leather bound notebook.
I looked behind me, seeing he had made himself comfortable on one of the common room sofas. Novel in hand as he sat on the closest space to the fire.
"Thank you." I projected over to him.
His eyes flickered up from his book and he shot me a quick smile.
"Let me know if you can't read any of it, I'm left handed." He said, raising his left hand to show me the inky smudges left behind from the school day.
I laughed at him lightly. Laughed because despite the smudges here and there, his handwriting almost looked typed.
I turned back around to the gesture that seemingly had eradicated my academic anxiety for the moment in time.
"Okay..." I whispered to myself, taking in a deep breath.
I picked up my quill once again and started using Regulus' notes as reference instead.
I'm a slytherin, I could do this.