Welcome Back, Allegedly

First-years get a banquet. Second-years get a timetable and a roommate and a strong sense that the Academy has stopped pretending to be glad you are here. I had spent the whole summer telling people second year would be easier. I had said it so many times it had started to sound like a thing I knew rather than a thing I hoped, and standing in the entrance hall with my trunk and my one good robe, watching the new first-years get their banquet, I understood I had been comforting precisely the wrong person all along.