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Fact, Fiction, and The Rest of the Story
Journal-thing,
I like being a second year. Second years don't have to attend flying lessons.
Anna has the Quidditch list up again, and no one will play for her, but she isn't mad at me for not signing up. I think. She's been in a really good mood lately, ever since That Fifth Year - I think someone said his name is Geoff; he looks like Lenny - decided that he needed to fasten himself to her with a Permanent Sticking Charm.
I don't like him, and not just because he talks to me as if I was two years old and stupid. He looks at her the way Alicia looks at her cats when they get in the yarn - like she isn't sure if she should get mad or laugh at them. My cousin is not a cat.
Classes don't seem any easier than they were last year, but I think that's just because it's been so long since I was allowed to do magic. Homework must be going faster than it used to, because I've already written half a story about a fire crab named Norton.
Grayson
Journal-thing,
Anna got her CATS scores back. She made three Os and thinks she should have done better on everything else. I'm not sure she went this crazy when Aladren beat Pecari.
I got my second-year letter. Mom isn't happy because it's going to cost so much, but she won't let me just use Anna's old books. She thinks people would look down on us. I can't figure out why. We can't be the only people in the world who aren't rich.
I think I might be a little bit in shock. Almost grown-up people shouldn't jump on beds.
Grayson Wright
Journal-thing,
I have survived first year. Anna has survived fifth year. In honor of this, Grandma has made us both plates of cookies, so we don't have to fight over who gets more - me (younger than her) or her (did not kill anyone during CATS). Hers all got cold before she came out of her room to eat them (I did not steal any, even though I wanted to), but Anna says she likes them better that way anyway.
Things are interesting here. Uncle Anthony and Aunt Susanna are having another baby (Mom says it will be Scott-or-Sarah, so I will call it Scorah if necessary until it is born. Is not all that clever, but whatever), I almost gave Dad heart failure, and Uncle John - this is the big part - has a job. First time in about six years he's done anything between doses of alihotsy derivatives. He's teaching a handful of classes nobody else wants to Muggle Studies majors at the University.
He says he hates it, and I believe him. He's looking a lot more lively, though, so maybe it's a good thing for him. I'm pretty sure it's a good thing for the rest of us, because I am also pretty sure we're broke again, even though Anna got a new broom for a welcome-home-way-to-go-for-surviving-and-n
Weird to not have something to do. Cannot wait to get textbooks. Will find something to read.
Grayson Peter Wright
Journal-thing,
Did not ask Addie to Ball. Cannot dance. Am not going to Ball. Sitting in dorm room in dress robes, completing another Phil and Missy and eating own cookies. Anna would take said cookies, but she thinks she has to go to Ball because she is a Student Leader.
I'm glad I'm not a Student Leader. It doesn't look like much fun, and it induces a level of cruelty that leads to the theft of cookies from Defenseless Cousins. Chocolate chips are an essential item while writing. In their absence because of Anna's CATS Stress, P&M have been stuck in the same crypt for two weeks.
Missy has figured the way out. I guess I'll have to come up with another story for them now, since the conclusions are all the same.
Gray
Journal-thing,
I've got a letter from school. There's going to be a Ball at Midsummer. It's an old tradition I think I saw mentioned in the book on the history of Sonora I read in October.
Do not know how we will swing dress robes for me and for Anna. We may not get presents on our birthdays because of this. Do not know about Anna, but I will be seriously out of temper if a measure so drastic is taken.
Maybe ask Addie to Ball.
Grayson
Journal-thing,
I'm at home for Christmas. Mom is happy - she's even not getting sick when Relatives are here, and she always gets sick when Relatives are here. Dad is also happy, but he didn't pay much attention when I tried to tell him about Sonora. Things get busy at work around Christmas in MagCat, especially for employees paid mostly to do the paperwork for everything in triplicate. I told Mom instead, and I guess Uncle John - he was there, and after I stopped talking he commented ("said" is boring) that three Aladrens made up four political parties.
Annie is not happy with Anna. They wanted her to come home, but she didn't. I didn't tell them exactly what she told me to, because Mom would have pitched a fit. I have started to integrate Anna's idioms into my own speech. This may not be good.
I'm hoping for two new books for Christmas, since it's a big deal to be coming home after almost four whole months away. I probably won't get them because of how much my textbooks cost back in August and because they gave me extra on my birthday because I was gone, but maybe my luck will stretch a little further.
Grayson Wright
Journal-thing,
I went to the game and sat with Anna's friend, Lenny. Lenny's a third year, and her real name is Helena. She's not much like Anna. Lenny's shorter and thinner than her, and has light brown hair and green eyes and smiles a lot, or did today. She told me she plays Chaser for the Crotalus team, the same position as Anna, but that she's not their captain. I thought it was kind of weird that someone like Lenny would be friends with someone like my cousin Anna, but I don't think it's any of my business.
I had been kind of worried about Anna. She looked pretty bad for a while there, and she was always really nervous. Maybe she'll get better now that the game's over and stop eating so many cookies. She's been eating all her cookie packages and mine for a while, but not much else. I don't think that's very healthy.
Grayson Peter Wright
Journal-thing,
People here talk about blood a lot. I think that was what was behind the fight in History of Magic, and Professor Taylor mentioned it on her syllabus. I finally asked Anna about it today, and she got mad. The upswing of this is that she wasn't mad at me - just sort of at humanity in general.
She told me that some people think they're better than other people because they're purebloods like us, and that some people think they're better than others because they're not purebloods, and then that there's people who think they're better than everyone else because they're purebloods who don't think being a pureblood makes a person better than everyone else. I didn't understand a lot of what she was saying - she started basing her rant on the social-history aspect of things after a while, and I don't follow social history that well - but she made it clear that she thinks they're all stupid. She finished it all off by telling me to hit anyone who messes with me because of that, or tell her to hit them if I don't want to.
I don't understand, though. It's just words, isn't it? They're all still wizards, so where's the controversy? I can see why there's a difference made between us and Muggles, but not between us and Muggleborn wizards. My mom told me before I left not to tell people she's a Squib - does that make a difference, too? She's never been too flattering when she talks about those Squibs' Rights activists, and Aunt Annie's always said they just want the rest of the world to feel sorry for them and give them free meals.
This is confusing. I'm going to go do my Transfiguration homework.
Gray
Journal-thing,
I haven't written for a few days. I've been taking notes so I don't just have to write about thing.
Anna has put up the Quidditch sign-up list. I am saved, at least for a year, from her wrath over my failure to join by a new rule forbidding first years. She's had lots of people sign up already, but she worries about the list anyway. There's a boy who sits in the common room and looks at the list a lot, but he never puts his name down on it, and he always leaves the common room if he sees Anna coming. Anna never looks anywhere near him. I don't know if it means anything.
My classes are more interesting than I expected them to be. In History of Magic, which Anna says is a new class, things got out of hand. I was kind of afraid I was going to be attacked, so I just kept quiet and pretended that no one could see me. A girl started yelling at a boy, two girls started fighting, and another girl fainted. That girl and a fighting girl were in my year, and fighting girl (Chelsee?) is in Aladren. History of Magic is taught by Professor Flatt.
Professor Taylor teaches Charms. She handed out syllabi that outlined what we aren't allowed to call each other names based on. Professor Keejewski, my Head of House, teaches Care of Magical Creatures. Both classes were all right, but I don't think I like them that much. I can't spell my Transfiguration teacher's name, but I think it starts with an 'S'. Professor O'Leary, the Defense Against the Dark Arts teacher, is a little intimidating. The first Potions lesson with Professor Connell was a little disappointing - we didn't actually make a potion, just made lists of potions we'd heard of.
Professor McFarlan teaches Astronomy. I really like that class. She made the lights do something so it looked like we were in outer space, and she's nice and didn't give us another redundant speech about rules. We started simple, writing basic papers about the planets. I worked with a girl named Addie after I got Saturn and Neptune swapped in my head. She did the factual stuff, and I tried to remember the stories. I knew I should have brought my mythology reader with me, but it wouldn't fit in my trunk. I liked Addie. Maybe I'll work with her again sometime.
Grayson
Journal-thing,
Several interesting things happened today.
I left home without Mom for the first time. I think I took it better than Mom did. She cried a lot. I didn't. Anna looked like she'd sooner die than stand there and watch it, but she looks like that a lot. It was sort of scary to get on the wagon without everyone, but I didn't want Anna or anyone to think I was a sissy or something.
Riding the wagon was...interesting. That's all I have to say about that.
They separated me from Anna when we got to Sonora. The entrance hall is really big. There's a mosaic showing the school's crest on the floor and three big pictures on the wall. Two of them are Professor Clurican and Professor Tribble, the founders of the school. The other one is of Professor Mims, who keeps up with the House points. The first years - that's me and my year - were taken in once everyone else was sitting down. We were all given these chalices of clear, bubbly potions and we drank them. They turned us the colors of our new Houses. I turned blue, for Aladren. You could say I was relieved.
I talked to a girl at the table, too. Her name is Claire Villian (I think I spelled it wrong). She's French, I think, and distantly related to some poet from a long time ago. Anna congratulated me on my Sorting before the food was put out, and the prefects for her year were announced. The Aladren one is named Christobel Dupree. My Head of House seems nice, too. Her name is Professor Kijewski. She mentioned Anna in her speech by telling the other first years (I already knew. She talks about it all the time) that she's the Quidditch Captain.
Grayson Wright