A/N: Hello, fan fiction community! This is my first real fic, and I've been sitting on the idea for a while.

It takes place from Order of the Phoenix and on to...well, I haven't decided where I want it to end yet. I have a lot of ideas that stretch all the way to Deathly Hallows, so we'll see. I'll also be trying to adhere to canon as strictly as possible :)

Reviews are very appreciated! I want to get better as I go along.

And without further ado, I thank you for clicking on my story, and hope you enjoy the ride!

I DO NOT OWN HARRY POTTER (obviously). J.K. ROWLING HAS THAT GLORIOUS RIGHT.

I nervously sat at a table in the library, alternating between checking my watch and looking back at the note scrawled on a piece of parchment that I had received yesterday from Professor Grubbly-Plank:

Dear Ms. Urie,

I have a student in my fourth-year class who is falling behind quite a bit. It would be very much appreciated if you would tutor her. You will receive extra credit.

Please be in the library at 6:00 on Wednesday evening, and she will meet you there. -P. W. Grubbly-Plank

After reading over the note for what must have been the hundredth time, my head snapped back to my watch. 5:58. I kept an eye on the doorway, as a constant stream of what-ifs made its way though my head. What if I misread the note, and we were supposed to meet somewhere else? My eyes went back to make sure that it definitely said "library." What if my watch is wrong? What if I forgot what day it is? What if she's already here, sitting alone at another table, and she thinks that I stood her up? What if this girl just doesn't show up? What if she does show up, and doesn't like me? What if she doesn't like me already and that's why she isn't showing up? What if she died on the way here?

I stopped myself and took a deep breath. This was getting ridiculous...she wasn't even late yet. It wasn't her fault that I was anxious about having to meet new people. It wasn't her fault that I wasn't thinking all of these things because I was scared that she wouldn't show up, but because I was secretly hoping that she wouldn't. As always, I tried to rationalize the way I was thinking. There are plenty of Ravenclaws who would make much better tutors, and I have a mountain of homework!

I sighed. Who was I kidding? I was just entirely sure that it was going to be awkward. It always was.

"Excuse me?" The voice jerked me out of my thoughts, and I looked up to see a pretty, short-haired Hufflepuff girl standing across the table from me. "Are you…" She looked down at a scrap of parchment, "Avalon Urie?"

"Oh, yeah," I blushed. It looked like she wasn't going to save me from this experience after all. I didn't really know what to say next, but she didn't seem to notice.

"I'm Ivy Lewis. Professor Grubbly-Plank said you would tutor me?"

"Oh, yeah." Was that all I could come up with? I cleared my throat, and motioned to the other chair at the table. "Do you want to, um, sit down?"

"Sure." She did so, and looked at me. As if she was expecting me to take it from there. As if she was expecting me to know what to do. I looked back at her, and found that she had extremely beautiful eyes. Green, but brown, too. I looked way.

"Er…" I bit my lip. "So, what can I help you with?"

"Well, right now we're learning about knarls." She pulled out a notebook. "But I don't get it at all. Isn't it just a hedgehog?"

Direct questions. I could handle direct questions. "They look almost the same, but you can tell the difference in their behavior." She waited for me to continue. "If you set out food in front of each of them, a hedgehog will come over and eat it. A knarl will assume that you're trying to poison it, and go ballistic."

"So it's a paranoid hedgehog?" She looked amused. I was surprised to feel myself smiling.

"Yeah, pretty much." This was getting a bit easier now that she was actually here. She seemed nice enough, and she wasn't as hard to talk to as I had expected. I felt silly; it always happened this way. There was always the build-up, but then it wasn't a big deal. "So what else do you need help with?"

We launched into a discussion of the proper ways to care for a knarl, and how to avoid them destroying your garden. As we talked, I became more at ease. I realized that Ivy was rather funny, and really did want to learn what I had to teach. I liked her.

An hour and a half later I left the library, proud of myself. Not only had I survived my time with Ivy Lewis, but I had even started to enjoy myself around her. There was something about her-I couldn't put my finger on it-but I felt like I wanted to get to know her better. I was actually excited for the next time I would see her.

I traipsed up to Gryffindor tower, and had barely gotten both feet through the portrait hole when I was scooped up into a bone-crushing hug.

"Oh, you poor dear!" said the voice of Lee Jordan in mock concern. "I thought you would never return!"

"Lee, I can't breathe…" I said, trying to struggle out of his grip.

He dropped me on the common room floor. "Whatever happened to 'it will only take a little while, I'll be back by the time you're done with dinner'?" He grinned, evidently only pretending to scold me. "Poor old me, all alone up here while you were off being a book worm, and all of my other friends were on the Quidditch pitch…" He flopped over-dramatically into an arm chair, and I sat next to him.

"You know I'm not a book worm," I replied. "And don't pretend that you didn't just get back from the Great Hall five minutes ago."

"Found me out, have you?" He smiled. "So, how did it go? As dreadful as you made it out to be?"

I shook my head. "She was really nice. We're going to meet up again on Friday."

"Awww," he pat me on the head. "Little Avsie is making friends!" I shot him an indignant look, and he burst into laughter. "Come on, when is the last time you hung out with someone new? I can't help but feel like you're so grown up now."

I laughed a little too. Lee and the twins always treated me as if I was so young, even if I was only a year behind them. "I wouldn't say that we're friends yet. We've only had one conversation…and about knarls, at that." I shrugged.

"Oh, let me hold out some hope that you'll be a social butterfly." He got a ridiculous look on his face, as if he was praying, but then pretended to be serious again. "Just promise that you won't forget all of us when you have these amazing new friends, alright?"

"How could I forget?" I laughed. Honestly, even though I only had a few, my friends were the best in the world.

Lee looked pleased. "Good." He nodded. "So, now that I've put my fears about your well-being to rest, I have some business to attend to." He smiled goodbye and stood up, then strolled out of the common room.

I watched him leave, and then reached into my bag and pulled out my Defense Against the Dark Arts text book. What a joke. I had had two classes with Umbridge so far, and both had been pure hell. But I figured that they would be even more hellish if I didn't do my homework, so I opened the sorry excuse for a book and attempted to read.

After a few minutes, of course, I wasn't taking in any of it. I found my eyes sliding over the same line, repetitively; while I let my mind wander into another land of what-ifs…What if Ivy did like me, just a little?