Hogwarts Host Club

Summary – Harry Potter is but one student in a school full of witches and wizards, the future leaders of the Magical World. Behind the tales that follow The Boy who Lived, the students of the recently founded Hogwarts Host Club are preparing for a new year, beginning with the Triwizard Tournament.
The Hogwarts Host Club is now open for business!

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Sixth year student Edward Von Rüch was once again trying to find a suitable hiding place from the squealing girls that were chasing him again down the Charms corridor. They had found him hiding in the library, and were now chasing him, trying to get his attention, affection, even a half glance back. Edward was getting used to this; at least this time they were only the usual Slytherin girls. He was a Slytherin too, and prayed to the gods that someone would come to his rescue this time, the girls were too close behind him for him to get to a decent hiding place without getting caught.
He rounded a corner, and collided with something. Or someone, he soon found out. A girl was sprawled on the stone floor before him, she had collided with his chest – rebounded and fell back on the floor. She sat up, but not before he had seen a flash of pink under her black skirt. He felt his cheeks burning and saw hers were too. He swallowed awkwardly, and held out a hand to help her up. She looked up at him, was that fear he saw in her eyes?
Nonetheless, she took his hand and let him pull her up. He gently let her hand go, watching as she dusted off the back of her skirt. Then his face fell. She was a Gryffindor. He could now see her red and gold tie. She had seen his green and silver one, that was why he had looked scared...

“Sorry about that...” he murmured, averting his gaze. The girl looked up at him in wonder, he was a whole head taller than her. His gaze moved back to hers, his piercing blue eyes locked with her grey-blue ones. She looked, doubtful? She didn’t believe he was sorry?
Why wasn’t he the least bit surprised? Although being a Slytherin, Edward held no ill will towards the other houses, his Slytherin friends knew this, as did the few other friends he had in other houses. This girl... he didn’t hate her. He wasn’t angry at her either. She seemed to have realised this, she was smiling now. She brushed her long, reddish brown hair over her shoulder, and smiled politely.
“It’s okay, I wasn’t watching where I was going anyway.” She said. Edward smiled, hearing that his ‘fan girls’ were watching him from around the corner. “Are you okay?” he asked, watching as she pulled out her wand to check if it was damaged. He noticed her wand was long and thin, with elegant swirls carved along its entire length. She noticed him looking, and held it out to show him. He peered at it curiously. It was a warm chocolate brown colour, and looked well taken care of.

“Fir with Unicorn hair. Thirteen and a half inches, supple. I remember the day Mr. Olivander sold it to me, I was so happy...” she said softly, before shaking her head quickly and smiling back up at Edward.
“Sorry, my name is Rachel.” She said glancing behind her for a moment before turning her gaze back to Edward again. He looked back to where she had been glancing, and saw a small group of Gryffindors huddled together, watching her carefully.
“Edward. Are they friends of yours?” he asked, indicating to the three students. Rachel nodded, looking grim. Edward sighed, and ran a hand through his black hair. No doubt her friends were thinking he had knocked her down on purpose, but now they would be confused as to why he was being nice to her.
“Yeah, I was just heading to the library to find one of my other friends; we were going to have a meeting... but looks like I won’t need to go looking anymore.” Rachel said, her smile now directed more at whomever it was that was approaching them from behind Edward. He turned to see one of his fellow sixth-year Slytherins, he knew her to be of the Black family.
“Hey Jesse, I was just coming to look for you. We’re ready for the first meeting.” Rachel said, and Jesse smiled. Edward looked carefully at Jesse, taking note of her deep black hair, tanned skin and golden brown eyes. She was tall and slim, her black shoes shiny and uniform neat and tidy. She looked like a model. It wasn’t right. Jesse never dressed so... girlishly. She usually just... dressed. He had never seen her look so much like a lady before. It was beyond confusing. Now that Edward bothered to notice, so did the friends Rachel had waiting for her. The two boys were tall with different shades of brown hair, and the girl was slim and easy on the eye.

Jesse eyed Edward with interest, but simply smiled and breezed past him to stand with the Gryffindors. The small group was soon joined by two Ravenclaw girls and a Hufflepuff girl. Now there were seven students watching both Rachel and Edward. Rachel blushed again, and began digging in her robe for something. She extracted an envelope, and held it out to Edward.
“I know it’s not much, but I’d like you to have it. I hope we can meet again, Edward.” She said, before turning around and going off to join her friends. As the group moved off, he opened the envelope and unfolded the paper that he found inside. Written across the top in elegant gold lettering, were the words;

HOGWARTS HOST CLUB GRAND OPENING

Edward stared after Rachel and her friends. The fact that they were all so good looking now made sense. They were starting up a host club... and he’d been given a free day pass for the grand opening, which was set for Halloween. Unsure of what to do, he simply slid the envelope inside his robes, and started to head back to his dormitory.

***

Halloween was in three days, and the day before that, those students from Beauxbatons and Durmstrang were coming to take part in the Triwizard Tournament. Edward re-read the invitation, since Halloween was on a Saturday this year, the grand opening was set for 1pm, and would continue through the afternoon until it was time to prepare for the Halloween Feast. He decided he would go, it would be rude of him not to, seeing as he had knocked the poor girl down and all.
The next day, Edward was barely paying attention in his Potions class, he didn’t need to anyway, he got perfect grades all the same. He didn’t even pay attention to Snape’s new assistant. He was drawing random shapes on a scrap piece of parchment waiting for the lesson to begin. There were a few students late, Snape was growing impatient. Then the door opened and the three offending Gryffindors slid inside and approached the teacher’s desk.
“Late again. I will not tolerate this for much longer, Miss Oert... Mister Wharthorn... Miss Aster...” Snape hissed, Edward sighed and opened his textbook. He heard mumbled apologies from a boy and a girl, but the third voice caught his attention. He looked up, and saw her. Rachel. The girl he had knocked over yesterday. She was in his Potions class. He wondered why she was so familiar. Yet she didn’t quite look like a sixth-year, she was... well... short. Not as short as... say... the assistant teacher (is she a dwarf? Can’t be...) but Rachel was definitely a lot shorter than even her Gryffindor friend. He quickly glanced around the room, and saw that the last three seats were to his left. One of them was going to have to sit next to him, and it seemed as though Rachel’s two friends had noticed. They were both scowling in his general direction. Rachel turned and scanned the room, and her eyes locked with Edwards. Her face lit up with a bright smile, and Snape seemed to lean away from the brilliance of it. Rachel quickly whispered a hello to the assistant teacher, Professor Char as he heard it, and made her way over to sit next to Edward. Her friends followed, and sat on her other side.
“Hello Edward!” Rachel whispered, pulling out a roll of parchment and a quill. She also extracted her textbook and slid it over to her friends.

“Oh Edward, this is Annette and Michael. Guys, this is Edward, from yesterday.” Rachel said in a low voice watching Snape as he in turn watched the four students at the back of the room. Edward tried to smile at Rachel’s friends, but their steely gaze made it hard, especially the one he was getting from Michael.
“Just ignore him; he’s that way with anyone he doesn’t know. It’ll pass.” Rachel added, throwing a scowl in Michael’s direction. Michael smirked and turned to talk to Annette. She wasn’t glaring at Edward so much, more of staring with obvious dark interest. Rachel didn’t tell her off, so she mustn’t have been doing anything too bad. Snape opened his own textbook, telling the class to open to page three-hundred and ninety-four.
They were making Polyjuice Potions, and Snape would be checking bags on the way out to make sure nothing was stolen. They would be working on this potion for the next month, so they had to get a partner and work with him or her for the entire next month. Naturally, Edward was partnered with Rachel, and Michael with Annette. They set to work, keeping their voices low as Snape and his assistant moved among the students to watch their progress.

Edward watched as Rachel carefully measured out the ingredients, preparing the fluxweed and knotgrass to be chopped. She pulled out her knife, and took careful aim with her tongue between her teeth. He had never met a girl so... different. Different in a good way. He could feel Michael and Annette watching him... and he busied himself with shredding the boomslang skin.
“Ouch...” Edward turned back to see a small cut on the end of Rachel’s forefinger. She didn’t look bothered by the cut; she put the end off her finger in her mouth without a second thought. Edward saw Snape roll his eyes in his peripheral vision.
“You okay?” Edward asked, Rachel looked at him with wonder in her eyes; she attempted a smile, and nodded. Edward fished inside his robes and found the bandaid he had stashed in there. He held it out to her.

“Oh wow, thanks a lot Edward.” She said, holding out her finger as Edward applied the bright green bandaid to her wound. At the same time Edward and Rachel looked up to see the assistant teacher standing before them, with a single raised eyebrow. Rachel poked her tongue out at the teacher, Edward shot her a shocked glance. Rachel laughed it off.
“Professor Kellie Char and I know each other outside of school. We used to work together at the same store.” She said in an undertone, and Professor Char knocked her over the head lightly with a roll of parchment before returning to Snape’s side, her expression smug. Rachel sighed, and returned to chopping the knotgrass with increased caution.

***

After their Potions lesson, Rachel, Michael, Annette and Edward left the classroom one after the other. Annette left to go to her Ancient Runes class, Michael had to go to see Professor McGonagall about his essay... the one he ‘forgot’ to hand in last week. That left Rachel and Edward to ask each other where their next class was. Turned out they both had Herbology, so they set off for the greenhouses together. Rachel felt a prickling on the back of her neck, and knew she was being watched. It didn’t surprise her when Professor Char followed them into Herbology, Kellie was an assistant teacher after all. Learning all the tricks of the trade before deciding which subject she would teach.
Edward didn’t seem as enthused. He sat next to Rachel again, finding her happy and calm presence soothing for his nerves. He didn’t quite get how a Gryffindor could make him feel so calm...
“Hey... umm... Rachel...?”
“Yeah? What’s up?”
“What’s your... blood status...?”
“Muggle-born. Me and my sister both.”
Edward was silent. She was a Muggle-born. And she had a sister. He didn’t know what he should do. He was a Slytherin after all. But he wasn’t...
“Heya, Rachel!”
Edward and Rachel turned in unison to see Rachel’s other male Gryffindor friend approaching them from the doorway. His brownish hair and green eyes reflected the light that was pouring in from the glass ceiling. He smiled at Rachel, grimaced at Edward. He sat on Rachel’s free side and dodged a book-blow to the head – barely. In the midst of his dodging, another book dropped on his head from mid-air, he had moved himself right into the path of the levitated textbooks Professor Sprout had been handing out. Cursing, he grabbed three books and handed one to both Rachel and Edward. Rachel burst out laughing, Edward tried to hide his amusement.

“Win some, Lose some.” Rachel teased, introducing Edward to Lindsay, and vice-versa. Lindsay seemed suspicious of Edward; he kept giving him long side glances with narrowed eyes. Rachel snarled at him every time she noticed, but most of the time she was too busy with her Venomous Tantacula to take much notice of anything other than keeping her fingers away from the biting-part of the plant. Edward kept an eye on her hands too, he noticed she was still wearing the bandaid he had given her in Potions.
The lesson was over too soon, and it was time for lunch. The trio walked together to the Great Hall together, Lindsay still watching Edward with dark interest. Edward compared his timetable to Rachel’s on the way, they had last period together in Defence Against the Dark Arts, also with Annette, Michael, Lindsay, and a few of Rachel’s friends from other houses.
Edward wasn’t too excited, but Rachel was one of the only people who would understand his... position... when the time came for him to tell her. He was sure she would understand, she was a Muggle-born after all. He bade her farewell at the doors to the Great Hall, and went to sit at the Slytherin table, just down from Draco Malfoy and his gang. He noticed Malfoy glaring at Harry Potter and his little friends, Rachel walking past them on her way to sit with Michael and Annette.
This was going to be a long day, it seemed.

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