Tongue Tied by queenspuppet

Chapter One

Anatomy of a Hufflepuff

My name is Calliope DeSole and I am a Hufflepuff. I know what you think of Hufflepuffs, all Hufflepuffs know what you think of Hufflepuffs. That we are the leftovers. That because we are not Ambitious we are lazy, because we are not Clever we are dumb, and because we are not Brave we are cowardly. Loyal, you say. Hufflepuffs are Loyal, with a capital L, as if that makes up for it. But when you say Loyal what you really mean is lazy, dumb and cowardly.

Do you want to know what the Sorting Hat said to me as I sat, terrified and stunned by the looks of the students staring at me? It said, “You’re a toss up. Where would you like to go?” Ridiculous system if you ask me, who’s to say what trait defines us at age eleven? And why should it be a hat? I looked around the room at the different tables. At Ravenclaw I saw boredom; what did they care if a runt like me joined their prestigious ranks? At Slytherin I saw cruelty, they were just waiting to haze to the first years, I could tell already. And at Gryffindor I saw a crowd of proud, pompous teenagers who thought too much of themselves. And I knew already that I thought too little of myself. But at the last table I saw a sort of awkward hospitality, a genialness that comes only from being outcasts together.

A Hufflepuff, I told the hat. I will be a Hufflepuff.

Loyalty has very little to do with being a Hufflepuff. Acceptance, patience, and a sort of pleasant knowledge that our houses won’t matter once we graduate are the things we have in common. That our unspoken exile will end in time and we will come out without scars or false opinions of ourselves. Without having driven ourselves to madness with studying, without resigning our lives to acts of good or acts of evil. We will not be Ambitious or Brave or Clever because those things are all too large for someone of eleven or seventeen. We will simply be exactly who we were when we stepped up to the Sorting Hat and accepted our fate of Simplicity.

Hufflepuffs are Simple. And I mean that in the most complex way possible.

I am Calliope and I am a simple person. Well, I aspire to be a simple person. Teenage hormones make simplicity rather difficult. I am good at Astronomy and Potions because I have a methodical brain, the Ravenclaw in me I suppose. I enjoy Fall and Spring most out of the seasons because they are the most colorful. My father works in the Muggle Studies department of the Ministry so our home is an odd assortment of Muggle contraptions, like record players, and wizarding tricks, like a piano enchanted to play on it’s own. My mother is pureblooded and my father is…close, but we would fall under the category of “blood traitors”. My parents are incredibly gentle people despite having come from Gryffindor and Ravenclaw, and they are probably the wizarding equivalent of Hippies. I am in love with Remus Lupin.

Of course, he has no idea. Lots of girls are in love with Remus Lupin, because that’s all you can be. You either haven’t noticed him yet, are in love with one of the other Marauders, or Remus Lupin is the end all and be all for you. Or at least I would assume so. I haven’t actually ever talked to anyone else in love with him. But I keep these things buried up inside of me, as I’m sure any other girl desperately in love with Remus Lupin would. I say his full name because we’ve never actually talked, and I would feel a little presumptuous just calling him Remus. I think we’ve actually never even had any eye contact. He’s usually reading or paying attention to his friends. And I usually…duck around a corner if he gets too close.

I have no false hopes of us falling madly in love with each other. I’ve always assumed that if you are harboring deep love for someone you’ve never talked to, nothing will ever come of it. I’ve watched him go through the occasional girlfriend, even Lily Evans briefly. I’ve never understood the fuss over Lily Evans, she might be pretty but she spends most of her time a deep burgundy color yelling at James Potter, and it clashes horribly with her orangey hair. It’s sure to only be worse this year, word on the train is that they made Head Boy and Girl. Everyone had assumed that Remus Lupin would be Head Boy. Perhaps even Dumbledore thought it was high time to force Lily Evans to fall in love with Potter.

The least simple thing about me is my auto-immune disease, I have lupus. It’s a small case and seventy-five percent of the time I feel fine, but about once a month I’ll be more than usually tired, achy and feverish. Not that it runs like clockwork. Sometimes I’m fine after a few days, other times I’m weak for a month at a time. When I was a child, my friends all knew about the disease when it developed and our relationship changed slightly. They treated me as something broken or very near breaking. When I started at Hogwarts I kept the lupus secret. Professor Dumbledore, my Head of House Professor Greene and Madame Pomfrey, the new nurse, know and are prepared for any emergency, but I’ve never been worried. I’ve never wanted to be seen as someone fragile, Madame Pomfrey likes to treat me as such but Dumbledore and Greene have never addressed my illness and I’ve always appreciated that. If my dorm mates and friend Anna Wilkins have ever noted that I take potions regularly, they’ve never mentioned it as of yet.

It’s September 1st and I’m sitting in an empty compartment on the Hogwarts express with my cat Mephistopheles, named after the Devil in the play Faust. However, Anna and I call him Philly or Philthy more often than his full name. He’s a mutt of a cat, almost black with faint orange stripes and few patches of white. Philly and I get along better than even Anna and I, but our relationship is based on more than the fact that we’re both terrible conversationalists.

I look up to the door, waiting for Anna’s mousy blonde hair to appear when Sirius Black swings open the door to my compartment. I jump in my seat, upsetting Mephistopheles and Black looks at me with an unreadable expression.

“Is it just you in here?” he barks.

I look over his shoulder to see the other Marauders standing impatiently. They are always late and always have a difficult time finding a compartment to sit in together. I look at Remus Lupin who is staring down the hallway, I could abandon Anna and let them sit with me if I wanted. I know all I would do is sit quietly by the window and avoid making any eye contact. Remus Lupin turns his head and I direct my eyes down before he might notice me staring.

“I’m waiting for a friend,” I say quietly.

Sirius huffed, “Very well, we’ll be back if we can’t find another spot, though.”

They kept moving down the hall and I made a secret prayer that there would be an alarming increase in enrollment leaving no empty compartments. I waited patiently in my seat for the appearance of Anna but she never came. I wondered if she hadn’t wanted to search the train for me and simply sat down with other Hufflepuffs. If the Marauders came back, how would I explain having turned them away. It was another twenty minutes till I felt reassured that the Marauders had found an empty compartment, and Anna had sat with others and I would be able to enjoy the train ride in solitude.

The door to the compartment swung open again, it was Peter Pettigrew.

“You’re friend not show up?”

He was awkward, which made it easier to talk to him. Not as awkward as me but a good amount less confident than his friends.

“I think she must have given up looking for me. I’ll leave and you four can have the compartment.”

“No, don’t worry. We’ll just sit with you,” Peter offered. He looked down the hall and waved to his friends. “All the other compartments already have at least four people. Alarming increase in enrollment this year, it seems.”

I mentally smacked myself. No more prayers for you Calliope! I wasn’t sure I would be able to stand the agony of an entire train ride within reaching distance of Remus Lupin.

“Alright,” I said quietly. I was fairly sure Peter hadn’t heard me because he was already putting his trunks in the overhead compartment. I couldn’t very well say ‘Actually I’d rather like to have this to myself, if you don’t mind’ if the train was completely packed.

Peter sat down across from me by the window and I quickly shoved myself against the window wall before James and Sirius sat on either side of me. That left Remus Lupin in the farthest possible corner from me.

“So…” Sirius leaned forward in his seat and craned his neck around the read the name on my trunks. He sounded my name out slowly, “Kaal-ee-oh-pee DeSole?”

I winced at the mispronunciation, despite years of having my name been obscured to such a vile sound it still hurt to hear.

“It’s Kuh-lie-oh-pee, actually,” I told him quietly but I wasn’t entirely sure he heard me. Calliope. Kind of like Kaleidoscope, except a name.

“I’m Sirius Black! This is James Potter, Peter Pettigrew and Remus Lupin. We’re seventh year Gyffindors.”

I wondered if he really thought the introduction was necessary or if he simply liked to remind me that they were the most popular people of our year.

“How nice to meet you,” I said, and nodded my head to them.

“What year are you?” James asked.

I blushed, I had been in classes of theirs, I had gotten dumped into the lake with them on our first day of Hogwarts ever. The Potters were good friends of my parents. And yet they had no idea.

“I’m a seventh year.”

James didn’t even stop to look embarrassed, “Oh, I don’t recognize you. What’s you’re House?”

“Hufflepuff.”

“Ohhh,” said James and Sirius in unison. That was all they needed, I knew. Of course we don’t know her, they must be thinking, she’s a measly Hufflepuff.

I turned back to the window and Mephistopheles crawled onto my shoulders. I could feel them staring at me. I stayed still and silent till they picked up their own conversations. James left after a short time to go find Lily in the Heads compartment and the others carried on with their jokes. I closed my eyes and listened to the low dry tone of Remus Lupin.

Most girls that are infatuated with the Marauders like to tell you that they’ve been in love with them since first year. They’re probably lying. I remember the Marauders from our first day, Sirius Black was snobby and pinched, Remus Lupin was pale and scrawny, James Potter was awkward and geeky and Peter Pettigrew was a roly-poly wonder. It wasn’t till fifth year when Black, Remus Lupin and Potter outgrew their awkward faze before any other boys in our year. That was what had distinguished them at first. I fell in love with Remus Lupin the year before, while he was still slightly gangly and prone to cracks in his voice. He was still only sociable to his friends and shied away from attention from anyone else. I don’t remember the reason why I fell in love, perhaps it was something he said in class because I’m certain we’ve never actually spoken.

Fifth year Remus Lupin fit into his own body, he could carry a conversation with a girl, he could hex a Slytherin and was a Prefect. Perhaps if he had remained taciturn and shy, still gangly, I might have had the courage to talk to him. But there were whispers in girls dormitories already about him, that he was the tame Marauder, the soft pale one. Loud, out-going, experienced girls called him ‘cute’. They said that he looked in need of someone to take care of him, to ‘nurture’ him. They said these things in threatening tones. I stepped back into myself, I stayed out of his way. Clearly, he was bound for much greater things, much greater people, than I would ever experience.

Someone shook me awake. I sat up and opened my eyes to find myself staring directly into the pale green eyes of Remus Lupin. His coloring was even more wane than I remember it being from the year before. But it didn’t give him a sickly look, simply a sort of ethereal quality, as if he wasn’t entirely on earth. He had Clever eyes, I noticed, but nicer than a Ravenclaw’s.

“We’re close to the castle. Sirius and Peter just went to change into their robes. I thought we ought to wake you.” Remus Lupin had a wonderful voice, it was straightforward and soft. Black and Potter both had these loud drawling tones, as if they thought their voices were meant for public speaking.

“Thank you,” I said, but it came out as a whisper.

AN: Am I allowed to have authors notes on this site? I have no idea! Just wanted to say Hi. This story was nominated for the Hourglass Awards this year, and before that I had never heard of UR.org. Since the story is already completed I'll be posting a chapter at least once a day. Thanks for reading, and drop me a note. I'm very friendly.