Disclaimer: Not mine.

A/N: These characters are no one in particular, just a nameless first year and nameless upperclassmen. It will be the same way for all the stories.

I’m one of a sea of first-years, walking into the Hufflepuff common room for the first time. A cheery fire crackles in the corner, and the bright yellow walls make the room warm and open.

Goggling at every thing around us, we carefully sit, either on the floor or on the big couches. We fall silent at the sight of a huge row of fifth through seventh years standing in front of us. Wordlessly they move forward, two students each taking the hand of one first-year and leading them to a quiet spot. I stop looking around me as two girls pause in front of me. One of them is plump and brown-haired, a calm smile across her face. The other has blonde hair piled on top of her head, and she holds out a hand for me to take.

I follow them up to their dorms, still not speaking. I don’t want to disturb the calm solemnity of the moment.

They settle on their respective beds, and I sit on the bench in front of the mirror, eyeing them nervously. It is a while before either of them says anything.

“Hufflepuff House is not an easy one to be in,” the blonde one begins, her words ringing ominously in the air. A sense of foreboding overtakes me. “We are mocked, behind our backs and sometimes openly as well. We are seen as weak, downtrodden, the house where those with no spine are placed in. You will be called a duffer, a plodder, useless, but most often, no one will pay any attention to you whatsoever. The worst thing in life is to go unnoticed and unseen, because you have not truly made a place in the world, then.” She stares at me somberly, and the one with the brown hair takes over, her cheery smile gone.

“We are overlooked and underestimated, but you will soon find that some of the most important people in your lives will have been Hufflepuffs. We can’t be the flashy heroes that the Gryffindors are. We can’t be the ones that people expect to have every answer, like the Ravenclaws. And no matter how much the Slytherins are loathed, they are still noticed, and we are not. But you will find that we make quieter heroes. We are the healers and the mothers and the comforters in this war, and all the time. We help in our own silent way, because we don’t help to be thanked. We help because we care.”

She pauses, and the girl with the blonde hair picks up once more. She leans forward and places her hands on her knees.

“We are not a house. We are a family. I think that is what Lady Hufflepuff intended when she founded our house. Over the years we have become the insignificant house, but we are as important as any Ravenclaw, Slytherin, or Gryffindor. We are Hufflepuffs, and that is a proud enough thing to be.” As she speaks she has gotten up, coming to stand on my left. Her friend follows and comes to my right. They grasp my hands and stand with me, and I stare into the mirror before me. I see a wide-eyed girl with braided, black hair, pressed cheek to cheek with the sisters of her house. For we are sisters now. And I realize:

This is what it means to be a Hufflepuff.