The week had been exhausting, from Professor Lockhart's classes, he's finally had some sense knocked into him though the classes were extremely boring, to the point of pain sometimes, and then Draco's constant presence with amateur insults, to our first flying lessons being postponed (Anastasia seemed to think she was going to make a fool out of herself) and everybody complaining about it in the common room. That got so annoying that she was driven to the Library, where she started a discussion with the librarian about whether or not the Library should provide muggle books.

Professor Lockhart's classes have been the most tiring, if only because they are completely pointless and feel like someone's throwing a bucket of water on your face saying 'Yeah, there really are people like this in the world, what are you going to do about it?'. It's so frustrating, and Anastasia felt she has no idea or power about what to do about it. She went down to that little cottage by the forest once, but since he didn't answer she thought that either Hagrid doesn't live there or he wasn't there and then this low, deep growl and bark scared the living daylights out of her.

Good thing Altaira wasn't there, she thought, I would've had to explain my phobia of dogs and good memories do not reside there.

She went back to the castle and, since it was far past nightfall, the common room was nearly empty. And to Anastasia's lucky surprise Draco was nowhere in sight. She didn't know that his friends had been bugging him about his bugging her and he had made it a point to avoid her, but if she had she would have gone to his friends and begged them to keep bugging him so he would stop bugging her and Altaira. Or maybe she wouldn't and just be happy for the bit of peace.

Anastasia went over to the only comfy chairs in front of the fire, for some reason most people avoided them, and opened the first of the books she borrowed from the library. She had been going to sleep later and later, having started having nightmares about her 'home'. So, to pass the time she would read until she was so tired she had to practically drag herself up to her dorm.

"You really need to get more sleep, Anastasia." Altaira said the next morning over breakfast.

"No, it's fine." Anastasia said, trying to cover up a yawn.

"Well, how are you going to pass classes when you're about to pass out."

"Seriously, its fine." she said again, and attempted to cover up another yawn.

"Seriously, you look like you're about to pass out, like a zombie or something. And if you're like this for our first flying lesson you're going to fall off your broom."

"I thought that was postponed," she gave another yawn, "and anyways, isn't that a little stereotypical? A witch flying on a broomstick?"

"Yeah, but it's for what people call 'the greatest wizarding game'. And they gave a new date, it's in three days. I thought you heard, and they're not going to postpone this one."

"What happened to postpone the last one?"

"I don't know, but Madame Hooch was said to be in the Hospital. And Madame Pomfrey won't tell anyone what happened. All the quidditch fanatics have been asking what happened and if she'll be better by the first match."

"Ok, let's not be late for our 'lesson'."

"I don't know if you can call it that."

"I know, isn't this terrible?"

"All we've been doing since the Acromantula is read from his stupid books."

"Yeah, and there's no way he did all that. For more reasons than one, like facts. If you take facts that have been proven, like that vampires can only drink blood and if they couldn't they would die, and size them up to his books they would fall apart. He says that after he 'fought' this vampire that it could only eat lettuce. The vampire would have died, not to mention that it's impossible!'

"Why can't half the wizards who read the books figure it out?"

"I bet their all mesmerized by his 'five-time winner of Witch Weekly's smile'." Altaira smiled and batted her eyelashes.

"Why don't we get the whole class to challenge him? We could bring books from the library and prove his books wrong."

"Oh, I don't know. Some people wouldn't want to go against their teacher."

"He's barley a teacher and even if it doesn't work it'll be fun to see his reactions."

"Fine, but we've got to plan this out." So that gave Anastasia another reason to stay up late, spending hours at a time in Library. For the next three days she was lucky to get a few hours' sleep. So, of course, when the first flying lesson came around she was practically asleep on her feet.

"Hello, students! I'm Oliver Wood and Harry and I are filling in for Madame Hooch for your lesson." said a boy when all the first-year Slytherins and Gryffindors arrived. "I'm the Gryffindor keeper and Harry's the best seeker Hogwarts has seen in a century."

"Course he is." Altaira whispered to Anastasia. She had to cover up a laugh, she had been thinking the same thing.

"Right," Harry interrupted Wood from continuing about the Gryffindor team. "You'll all need to stand next to a broomstick." Everyone hurried to stand next to a broom that was lying on the ground. And all the Slytherins stood opposite the Gryffindors.

"Hey!" A now familiar drawl came from near the castle. "Professor Snape thought that this lesson should also have a Slytherin teacher, so I volunteered. I am a great seeker."

"In your dreams, Malfoy." Wood called.

"I've got the note that states it, Wood."

"Course he would bring a note." he said under his breath. "Fine, come on."

"Ok, so everyone should hold out their arm above the broom and say 'up', alright." Harry continued, ignoring Malfoy.

I bet he didn't even want to teach this class and wants to get it over with. Anastasia thought. She held out her arm and said up, but it was rather slurred with exhaustion and the broom rose only half way.

"Oh, come on. Up!" she then said with more control over her voice, and the broom rose with such force that she stumbled back a bit. After a good ten minutes, everyone had their broom in their hand and both Wood and Malfoy showed us how to mount our broom.

"Alright, when I say go I want everyone to kick off the ground, I'll give further instructions when we're all in the air." Everyone kicked off when he said go, but a few only stayed high enough that their feet didn't touch the ground, a few fell right back down to earth and a few stayed a few feet in the air. Altaira and Anastasia both stayed in the air and had to wait a good twenty minutes before everyone else stayed up. Anastasia had already started to doze a few times already and Altaira had to call out before she fell off or veered off.

"Good." Now we'll practice some simple motions with the brooms. I want you all to line up!" It took a while for everyone to line up. "Ok now I want you to fly forward, one at a time."

"Can we race?" called someone at the end of the line, one of the kids who had stayed a few feet above the ground.

"No. There will be no racing." Harry said.

"What? Why don't we let them race, Potter?" called Malfoy. "I bet I could beat you!" Everyone was watching them as Malfoy circled Harry and Wood tried to stop him taunting Harry. Harry looked as if he wanted to reply, but also just wanted to leave, he also had his had clenched so tight around the handle of his broom that they were white. Anastasia was the only one not watching, she had dozed off again and her broom was slowly making its way to the right, gaining speed as it went along.

"Anastasia!" She woke with a start and quickly straightened out her broom. She was far away from the rest of the group by then.

"Get away from there! That's the Whomping Willow!" Harry called out. Malfoy was still circling oblivious to the danger Anastasia was in. She was still half asleep.

"What?" she said, not nearly loud enough for them to hear. Then a branch whipped across her face, efficiently waking her up and leaving a shallow gouge under her eye. She regained control of the broom, as it had started to float off again, and pushed it a few feet to the right as a thick branch came down right where she had been.

That could have taken my head off. She thought, but she didn't have time to keep thinking as that move had brought her closer to the tree, and closer to thicker braches. Some instinctive survival mode seemed to click on in her. She speed forward and backward and side to side, losing any sense of direction, only thinking of where branches were and where they weren't, trying to get to the latter. When finally she went forward and the air was clear she let out a sigh of relief. She had almost been pummeled or whacked out of the air not less than a few times and didn't come out unscratched. She flew over to the group, whom all landed, and did a quick head count, looking for Altaira. She wasn't there.

"Merlin, are you ok?" Wood asked the second she landed. "It's a good thing you had the sense not to land, it would have been harder to evade attacks."

"Fine." I say, "Just a lot of little cuts and a few bruises."

"I don't think I've ever seen anyone fly like that! I don't know if Harry could have flown like that!" Wood said, oblivious to the fact that she was not fine. The blood coming from the hundreds of cuts was coating her like a second skin, as it had already been smudged over her robes.

"Naw that was nothing. I could have done that in my sleep." Draco said, also oblivious to that fact.

"If you were looking to be knocked out of the air." Harry said. "And you are not fine. You're completely covered in blood! We need to get you to the hospital wing!"

"Where's Altaira?" She asked, "I'm fine, it probably looks worse than it is." She took a step forward, but wobbled a little and had to grab Draco's arm for support. The lack of sleep adding to the effect.

"I sent her up to get Madame Pomfrey, and I good thing too. I think you're getting dizzy from loss of blood." said Draco, he looked as if he wanted to shrug her hand off his shoulder, as it was now covered in blood.

"No, no I think it's clotting. I'm fine."

"We thought you were going to be thrown off your broom. I've had experience with the Willow, it doesn't like things to go near it." said Harry, he seemed to grimace at the memory of his and Ron's arrival. Anastasia was starting to feel weird by that point, and no one noticed that a rash had appeared on her arm.

"Hence the 'Whomping' part of the name." Wood added.

"Are you sure you're alright?" asked Draco.

"What are you actually worried about someone other than yourself for once?" asked Wood.

"What? She's my little sister's friend, I'll be hearing about it for ages if she's hurt."

"Right." some other person in the group said. By now most everyone had their wands out.

"Um, maybe I should get to the hospital." She stuck both arms out just to help her stand upright. "Is it me or is the ground spinning?" By then she was completely covered in blood, but it was just because of how many cuts she had, none of them were too deep, in her opinion. A few of her classmates looked sick and one Slytherin had passed out at the sight of so much blood.

"Come on, let's get you to the hospital." Just then Altaira came running down, with Madame Pomfrey and Professor Snape following.

"Merlin! Are you alright, Dear? We need to get you to the Hospital now!" And with that they rushed me into the hospital wing. I could hear the argument continue, the Slytherins siding with Malfoy and the Gryffindors siding with Wood and Potter.

When did I start thinking of him as Potter and not Harry? She thought. I don't even know them. Maybe I'll go over to the Gryffindor table tomorrow. She had thought they were father away from the hospital, but she seemed to blink and then they were there.

"Come over here and lie down. We need to clean out those cuts." She went to get bandages. "You must either be a great flyer or very lucky to fly through the Whomping Willow with minimal damage." Minimal damage? Anastasia thought. "I remember the last student who went too close to that tree. Bloody mess. It shouldn't still be on the grounds."

"Ok." she replied, too dizzy to really answer with something else.

"Now take this, you need to get some sleep. Your friend told me about you staying up and that that's how you got close to the tree in the first place. I don't think you had to lose too much blood to get this dizzy. If you lost only a little more I believe you would have passed out in the grounds." Anastasia drank the spoonful of medicine Madame Pomfrey was holding out, not really comprehending what she was saying. "Professor Snape, could you please get clean sheets out of that cabinet? I don't want this girl sleeping in her own blood." That was the last thing Anastasia heard before she fell into a deep sleep and she thought Wow I must be losing a lot of blood for it to soak the sheets.

She woke up with eyes right in her face, she almost screamed. But the eyes backed away and a hand covered her mouth before she did.

"Sorry about that!" Altaira said when I pushed her hand away.

"Almost gave me a heart attack, you did."

"Sorry."

"No, its ok, just if I'm in the Hospital asleep again, don't put your face right in front of mine."

"Sure."

"Did you cut your hair?" she asked.

"No. See I can control the length of my hair." And as Anastasia was watching Altaira's hair grew to be extremely long, brushing the floor, to extremely short, could have been considered a buzz-cut, and back to normal.

"That's freakish. But in an extremely cool way."

"Yeah, I can also change my facial features, my mom says I'm an albino metamorphmagus, one of a kind." she looked rather proud. "I just can't change the coloring of my hair all that much, like other metamorphous, and my eyes will only be reddish-pink or near white."

"Has anyone else come to visit me?"

"I'm not sure."

"Ok, I was just wondering."

"Madame Pomfrey said you could leave when you woke up, but only after she's had a word with you. I bet you're hungry. You slept all yesterday and today, it's almost dinner."

"Seriously?" She almost jumped out of the bed, missing a meal always freaked her out.

"Oh and Professor Snape wants to talk to you."

"I bet I'm in trouble."

"No, why would you be."

"Right, but still. How much work is piled up for me?"

"Really? If you weren't such a fantastic flyer you could be dead and your thinking of schoolwork?"

"I'm not that good a flyer. Come on, I am starving."

"Sure, but Professor Snape said he wanted to talk to you right when you were healthy enough to leave the hospital and you still need to talk to Madame Pomfrey ."

"Ok, well could you go get her?"

"Oh, sure." With that she rushed out of the room.

When they came back Madame Pomfrey said "Awake I see. Now we need to talk about why you had such a drastic reaction to the willow."

"If it's because I'm not sleeping-"

"No, no. It's not that, but I should have a conversation with you about that." She gave Anastasia a stern look.

"What is it then?"

"I do believe you're allergic to the willow. I would like to test you for other allergies as well."

"Now?"

"Not now. I'm sure you're hungry. But we will need to make an appointment. Now you may go." She made a small hand gesture as well.

"We need to go the common room first."

"Thank you."

Anastasia and Altaira quickly left.

"We need to go talk to Professor Snape now."

"Why?"

"He wanted to talk to you."

"Fine." We walked to Professor Snape's office, Altaira talking about what it looked like to see Anastasia fly through all those swinging branches.

"The whole school will be talking about it." she concluded once they reached the office.

They knocked and Professor Snape said "Come in." on the first knock.

"You wanted to speak with me, Professor?" Anastasia asked once they were in front of his desk. His office had a few more jars of weird floating things than the last time she had been in there. She really wanted to know what they were.

"Yes. I wanted to speak to you about your flying." He paused, as if to wait for her to say something, but she didn't. "I would like you to join the Slytherin team. The team voted and after Mr. Malfoy described how you flew and would like you to be on the team. You do not have to accept, and I will give you time to think about it. You would also have to try out to see what position you should take, and the whole team has agreed that they would step down if it is their place you should be best suited for. You may leave."

"Thank you, Professor." she said and turned around with Altaira following.

"You're going to accept, right?" she asked right after turning the first corner.

"I don't know. I really think that was just a lot of luck."

"Come on, you have to. Let's get to the common room."

"Really? I'm starving and the Great Hall is just down that way."

"Fine, you do need to eat." They walked to the Great Hall in silence.

"Do you know how awesome it would be if you took Draco's spot?"

"I don't really want to take anyone's spot."

"Good, because you're not taking my spot, especially since it was probably beginners luck." Anastasia sighs as she has become very familiar with that voice.

XXXX

Ok, could someone please review? I think that this chapter had been too fast, so could anyone tell me and maybe give me some ideas on how to slow things down or your opinion on how I could improve the story? Thanks.