NOVEL WEB chapter 22 (Supreme Leader)
My new house welcomed me with claps on the back and cheering.
I put on my best smiling face, sat next to Susan Bones and started making some small talk.
Just the usual stuff, what's your name, dream for the future, hobbies, oh and I truly hope we can enjoy our time at Hogwarts together. Repetitive and boring but social norms had to be followed. Sadly it became even more boring due to them all being children.
The feast was delicious, I didn't allow myself to eat much since a fair amount of magic was used to heal you every time you became unhealthy, but I continued to chat with the other Puffs.
After about 30 minutes of conversation, I had decided which students I would befriend.
Susan Bones, niece of Amelia Bones, fairly strong magic and had a pleasant if a bit ditzy personality. (Also politically powerful through familiar relations)
Hannah Abbott, she was nice, but I mostly picked her so that Susan didn't have to decide between me and her. This early on, I was pretty sure I would be the loser in that one.
Wayne Hopkins, quiet guy, a bit of legilimency showed that he was consistently quiet, and not only shy. A good friend to have if one did not want to deal with incessant childishness.
I used the term friend loosely, I simply wanted some people to talk to while walking from classroom to classroom and doing homework. I saw them more as, school comrades. But children were generally incapable of understanding the difference, between a friend who you spent your genuinely free time with, and a friend of convenience who you simply kept around to kill the boredom of school with.
Having more than four friends was a waste of time, I would of course do my best to have a healthy relationship with my other yearmates but other than that I just didn't see the point.
After the atrocious insult to music itself that was the Hogwarts anthem we were led to the Hufflepuff common room by a prefect.
The password was "unity", people from my time would have had a seizure at that one.
The only thing I remember from the introduction round we had to do, was that Susan liked charms and that most people in this house were fairly shy.
It soon came to be my turn.
"My name is Ron Weasley, I like drawing, Magic in general and having some good friends I can rely on. I dislike broccoli and boredom." The kids looked happy to have someone excited and generally in a happy mood, they also laughed about the broccoli part.
They immediately stopped when I opened my mouth again. Man these guys were the canadians of Britain.
"AND I'M GOING TO BE THE GREATEST WIZARD OF ALL TIME." I shouted with the loudest voice I could muster. The people I was surrounded with looked shocked, if by my volume or my proclamation I didn't know.
Some smiled at me, mostly the older years, my yearmates thought it was funny. Professor Sprout who had been happily watching my introduction decided this was the time to step forward and send us all to bed.
I shared a room with three boys Ernie Macmillan, Justin Finch- Fetchley and the aforementioned Wayne who if he liked it or not was going to be my closest friend, in Hufflepuff at least.
Before the others could go to sleep I took out my sketchbook and asked with a voice filled with mischief.
"Anyone want a drawing of themself." Suffice to say we only went to sleep two hours later exchanging stupid stories of our childhood all the while.
My goal in Hufflepuff was to set myself up as the leader. Authority felt good, it was fun to gain when the stakes were as low as they were in school, and being respected was always a good thing. I did not foresee a whole lot of difficulties in gaining that leadership status.
-/-
I woke up at exactly six in the morning the next day. I dressed myself in some ratty old clothes that I had only kept for the purpose of exercising and started doing some light callisthenics and running outside.
Ron Weasley
The Immortal
Str: E-
Agi:E+
Vit: D-
Reg: E+
Magic: D-
Magic reg: F+
Happily whistling I went back to my dorm room, where my roommates were slowly leaving their slumber and shouted.
"Well Good Morning my fellow sufferants and what a fine morning it is!" They started groaning at my apparent inability to use and indoor voice and Wayne even threw a pillow at me.
I smiled at them and said something that would actually get them out of the bed.
"I know it's hard waking up by a schedule, but we have class in one hour and we don't want for all the bacon to be gone." After some more good-natured grumbling they started rising.
I liked showering and bathing, it was relaxing and the only bathroom activity I did not use magic for.
I left the bathroom in my Hogwarts robes, threw myself on the bed, opened my potions book and waited for my roommates to finish up with their morning grooming as well.
20 minutes later they were sitting at the breakfast table babbling away, while I mostly abstained, and occasionally interfered to guide the conversation to topics I was actually interested in. When the girls came down, their counterparts immediately told them about my drawing prowess and so I found myself sketching out my female housemates through almost the entire morning.
I didn't mind, I enjoyed doing it. Something I couldn't let them know of course, so I openly lamented on my misfortune a bit.
When Sprout came and gave us our schedules she gave me a blinding smile. I grinned back at her.
I think she liked me.
The first lesson was potions with Snape, I wondered if he was as bad as the books depicted him as.
I stood up and addressed my year.
"Guys I heard Professor Snape is really strict from my brothers." Some students near enough to hear nodded or voiced their assent.
"He has to be really, potions is a class where you can really hurt yourself by simply being distracted for a second." I looked them all in the eyes gravely, trying to impress on them the gravity of the situation.
Comfort was something to be enjoyed. And an unpleasant classroom environment, be it stemming from the students or the teacher, was to be avoided.
"Onwards we march!" I took point and led them to the potions classroom. It was quite easy taking control in social situations when all others involved were eleven years old.
I made sure that we came five minutes early, subtly, but not so subtly that they wouldn't notice, I guided everyone into their chairs in a way that someone who knew at least something about the subject was sitting next to someone who didn't.
I saw the more perceptive of them smile at me gratefully.
I myself sat next to Wayne and we continued to exchange some comments on the state of the classroom and the subject itself, until Professor Snape swooped in.
I had sat myself in the front of the class, so that everyone, even the now present Ravenclaws saw me immediately shut up, sit straight and look respectfully at the Professor.
The Hufflepuffs immediately followed suit, I had already established myself as the leader after all.
The Ravens noticing that the classroom was only half as loud as before, swiftly noticed what was going on and we managed to turn a fairly disorganized looking class into a class willing to work with the teacher in less than four seconds.
What can I say. I was just too good.
Snape looked at us oddly for a second and then addressed the class as a whole.
"Good morning class, put your wands away we will be starting with some theory today."
No speech for us. Maybe it was reserved for Potter?
-/-
We were wandering the corridors towards our charms classroom after our surprisingly pleasant potions class. I already knew quite a lot about the subject, having brewed the ageing potion before, and being able to abstract quite some knowledge from that alone. But I had learned a few new things nonetheless.
The only thing everyone, could seem to talk about was the fact that Snape wasn't as bad as everyone had told them. Through the fringes of Wayne's black hair, I saw Susan's dark brown eyes glancing at me.
I smiled at her, she blushed and looked away.
Her aunt was a politician, she had probably recognized how I had manipulated everyone in Potions.
I wasn't worried about that. She was just a kid.
What I was more worried about was what Snape might think of the fact that I didn't have a mind in my head if he ever decided to try and use legilimency on me.