Hufflepuff Table

Theresa piled sme pasta onto her plate and began to eat. "I wonder who I will be sharing my dorm with this year" she said as she thought. She would be sharing with the first year Hufflepuff girls but didn't know which ones yet.
"It is a shame I cant share a dorm with you Alex, you will probably be with Dixie and Alice" she said.

Alex suddenly jerked upwards when she heard her name be called out, "Yeah? Sorry, I....! yeah I guess so, since we are the only girls? Yeah, I guess!" Alex replied thoughtfully, still a bit unco-ordinated by her spazzy bout.

Theresa laughed "Earth to Alex, are you finally among the living?" she asked jokingly. She couldn't help but yawn herself, she was pretty tired and all her excitement from the sorting had gone now and she was not feeling as cheerful as she usually was.
"I think I am going to go, I will see you both around" she said.

Wyatt smiled and yawned into his empty plate, before giving her a tired, slow nod. "Yeah, I'll see you around." He told her, as he looked back up and down their table. He sighed, and gripped the Saint Christopher pendent around his neck, staring quietly off into space.

From the far end of the table that he was sitting at near the doors, Indiana surveyed the staff congregation at the main table of the Great Hall, knowing that there was now a new teacher for Defense Against the Dark Arts and that was none other than the Auror named Thomas Anderson that had visited last term. After he finished surveying the individuals, Indiana merely turned away and stared into endless space while thinking of things to do this term.

Alice noticed Indiana staring off into space cocking and eyebrow hoping he was not up to mischief already. She scooted a bit closer to Indiana so no one else would hear as she whispered, "I do hope you are not already thinking up mischief when it's just the beginning of the school year?" She looked at him curiously hoping that if he was already planning something that he would not get caught.

Indiana inwardly sighed amid hearing the rather familiar voice of the Head of Hufflepuff Discipline, Alice Caelum. Though he had deliberately didn't report to her when he lost points last term, Indiana knew that he was now on her radar.

"It depends on how you define mischief." Indiana replied warily. "Sad to say that the professors don't believe in the development of personal skills that they see to be unfit for children."

The memory of getting detention for making wine was just one example of his last statement.

"They are also liable for the children's safety and there are plenty of parents who would be rather... hard to handle if something happened to their child. Which is a quite a bit ridiculious when they are already sending their children off to school by themselves." Alice sighed wishing that one of her parents had not been quite the prime example of this. She looked around making very sure no one could hear before she spoke a bit lower,

"I do not care the mischief as I care about the consequences of getting caught. I am a bit sore after a friend was being a bit irritating about winning the House Cup last year. That and I would appreciate not having to see the Head of House angry", she eyed the new members of Hufflepuff not quite sure what kind of trouble they might start. Just the confrontation last year involving Professor Malfoy and Professor Spelling made her not want to see the head of house truly mad. "I'm not very sure about this group as of yet, hopefully it will not be a busy year."

"I doubt they are liable for the safety of the children. If some kids got killed at Hogwarts, all the faculty would do is use Memory Charms to alter the minds of the parents and anyone that knows the existence of the deceased." the youth replied casually before adding. "My apologies, but before she left, Professor Alex Hunt kind of rubbed a bit of her mentality on me when she taught DADA last term."

Indiana then continued in a low voice. "Regarding activities, I plan to lay low and just go to my classes. Nothing more, nothing less. That may change, however, if our house ends up having no chance at the House Cup like last term. As for the newcomers, I'll just pray that what happened at the beginning of what I witnessed last term due to Nick Hale and his merry group won't repeat in this term."

Alice shuddered slightly from the Nick Hale remark, "May Merlin help us that we do not have to deal with another Nick Hale. It was bad enough the first time around, I honestly dislike so much gossip and drama in only a few days." She shook her head at the memory before clearing her thoughts, she had not truly met the boy for he had only been in one of her class groups. All she knew is that it stirred up enough trouble to last them their entire first year. "Also I very much doubt you could find every last person the child had been in contact with, and the Ministry of Magic would not be very pleased about use of magic."

"Yeah, I suppose that's true regarding the erasure of existence." Indiana replied as he thought about the difficulty of such a task for the Ministry and the limits on using methods to alter or erase memories.

"Well, I doubt I'd be getting into trouble this term. But the lack of activity was the main reason why our house didn't win last term. Anyways, it's very much a dramatic struggle for the underdogs on overcoming the odds to achieve a goal and leave one's mark behind."

Theresa walked into the Great Hall, feeling half asleep. Looking around, she made her way to the Hufflepuff table. It was strange seeing all the new students, she was just use to seeing the second years around. It was all still very exciting though, and she was sure glad that the mess from the sorting feast had gone.
She sat down at her house table and opened a book as she ate.