C22 New Friends

Beauxbatons Garden | 2nd September 1985 | 4 PM

Everyone in the garden were heartily laughing while making jokes about Madame Abadie.

"Fleur. You must understand that it is respectable to marry someone like Nasper. You should be happy to marry someone you don't like."

A girl quipped. She had brown hair, and it was braided into two braids. She wore the blue Beauxbatons uniform and on it the crest of the Houde was sewn over her right pocket. She had a very fair face and was very cute. She laughed along with the rest of the group while making more jokes.

The group had gathered at 3 PM as promised by both Fleur and Charlus. They first introduced themselves and dived right in to the one thing that all students share - mutual hatred of the teacher.

Everyone except Charlus and one other girl were cracking jokes. Charlus was simply laughing and observing the others while the girl was secretly staring at Charlus with a curious expression. Charlus, though he acted oblivious, knew she was staring at him.

He looked at her once and it was enough to remember all her features. When he first saw Fleur, he had a slight infatuation, but when he saw this girl, he felt his heart race. As an 8-year-old who lived with Sirius Black, he threw it aside as a crush. But those features obstructed his ability to think.

She introduced herself as Selena Desjardins. She said she was a muggle born but no one minded. She had pitch black hair which was braided and brought front by her right shoulder. She was very fair skinned. Her eyes were green in colour, but not the same green as his brother, Charlus noted.

After the laughter subsided, Lucas said, "Hey Charlus? Are you daydreaming? I asked you a question."

Lucifer and the others laughed while Charlus blushed.

"What did you ask? I got distracted."

"How about we play a card game? Then everyone will play instead of-"

"Sure!"

Everyone agreed and Lucifer took out the cards and started shuffling. It turned out that everyone had already played the game before, so the game started quickly. By some cursed luck, even after 2 hours of playing, Charlus didn't win.

Charlus suddenly stood up and said, "Today my luck is very bad. I have to get going. Sorry, please enjoy."

Charlus left the garden in a hurry and went in the direction of his dorm. Then, instead of going to his dorm, he turned and went to a new place. He looked at his map, and he continued in the same path. After 10 minutes, he reached a huge building, which was the biggest building leaving the astronomy tower.

He entered the building and once he went inside he left a huge sigh of content. The building he went to was the library. He went directly to the librarian's desk and asked her a question.

"Sir, am I allowed to read any book here?"

"Yes dear," The man behind the desk replied, "And feel free to call me Old man Rick." He went back to reading the book he was holding.

Charlus looked like a boy who got unlimited candy. He went towards the book shelfs and looked for interesting books. It took him 15 minutes, but he finally picked a book and went to a desk in the corner of the library room. The library was empty since it was the first day. He opened the book and started reading.

Meanwhile, a figure was watching Charlus closely. As Charlus read on for almost 2 hours, the figure did not even budge once and simply observed Charlus. At 8:00 PM, Charlus was done reading the book and he got up to stretch himself. He looked around to see if there was anybody save himself and the library. He couldn't find anyone, so he shook off the feeling that told him someone or something was watching him.

He went outside but not before checking the time on the library clock. He saw that the time was 8 and he suddenly realized that he spent too much time. He dashed out of the library and ran towards his dorm. This was the reason he went all the way to his dorm and then started to the library - to remember the way. He reached the dorm in just 5 minutes. When he went to his room, he saw Henri.

"Where were you? I couldn't find you in the dorm."

Charlus didn't run to avoid the suspicion of his friends. He ran so that he would be inside the room by curfew which was 8:30. He gave an excuse to his friends.

"I was just exploring the school and I lost track of time."

He brushed aside all the other questions and said, "I'm sleepy. I'll go sleep."

He went to bed and fell asleep right away. He hadn't eaten dinner, but he had eaten enough for lunch so he wasn't that hungry. Henri didn't understand why Charlus was being dodgy, and so he did the common thing that 8-year-olds at boarding school do at 8. He went to sleep.