Contrary to habit, I woke up quite early the next day. Feeling disoriented in the huge fluffy bed, I opened my eyes to find red and gold hangings around me. On my headboard were two photographs – one with Isabelle, Mum, Dad and me, which I'd taken two weeks ago; the other, just yesterday, with James and Sirius. Suddenly I remembered – Hogwarts. I sat up, pulling the hangings apart – everyone was still sleeping, by the looks of it. The clock on my bedside indicated the time was ten past seven. According to the prefect who showed us around the common room yesterday, breakfast was at half past eight, and classes started an hour after that.
Being as quiet as possible, I slipped out from underneath the warm sheets and tiptoed across the room to the bathroom – only to find someone in it. So, I tiptoed back to my bed, and opened my trunk to pull out my school robes. I just managed to find my wand when I heard the door open and looked up.
Lily was coming out, already dressed. She saw me make my way to her, and mouthed a 'Good morning'.
"Bit early, isn't it," I whispered when I got close enough.
"I'm supposed to meet Severus," she whispered back. "He got sorted into Slytherin."
I nodded. "I think I remember him from the train. I still can't believe we're here."
She grinned. "I know. It all seems like a beautiful dream." Last night, I learnt that Lily was muggleborn, like me. There were three other girls in the dorm with us: Mary MacDonald, a skinny girl with brown curls up to her shoulders; Alice Adams, who was shorter than me (and that's saying something) and Caroline Forbes, whose height I was already jealous of. Caroline and Alice both had magical parents, and Mary's father was a wizard, but she lived with her mum, so she knew very little about the magical world before getting here.
"Why are you up at this time? Early riser?"
"Nah," I grinned, walking to the bathroom. "It's a one-time thing."
Twenty minutes later, I was downstairs in the common room. There was still time before breakfast, so I sought out an unoccupied corner of the large room and started writing a letter to Isabelle. A few minutes later, a boy I recognized as Jonathan came down with a large book and sat down at the table next to me.
"Morning," I said, but he didn't reply, opened his book and stuck his face in it. I shrugged and went back to my letter.
Just as I was rolling up the parchment, two boys rolled down the stairs.
Literally rolled down.
The room had gotten a little crowded since earlier, and everyone looked up to see who these two unfortunate souls were.
James Potter and Sirius Black.
Of all the people in Gryffindor House, it had to be the two I knew.
Of course it did.
They got to their feet quite easily, as if they had meant to fall down the stairs. In unison, they looked at the staring crowd.
"What? Haven't you ever seen two boys rolling down stairs?"
"After being pushed out of their own dorm by their own dorm mate for making too much noise?"
The crowd went back to their work, sniggering.
James and Sirius looked around the room and spotted Jonathan looking irritated and me, barely able to control my laughter.
"Morning, Ayesha," James said, while Sirius tried to get a look at Jonathan's face through the book.
"Stop it, Black!" Jonathan hissed, got up and walked out the portrait hole.
"Morning," I smiled. "Who exactly pushed you out?"
"Not the bookworm, but I'm sure he was itching to. He chose to ignore us and come down here to read his precious book."
"You still didn't answer my question."
They sighed. "Remus Lupin," James answered. "Y'know, that kid who looked all tired yesterday? Apparently, one night's sleep isn't enough."
"Well, you shouldn't be making so much noise so early. Especially when you don't know what your dorm mates are like."
"It wasn't noise! I couldn't find my robes!"
I looked questioningly at Sirius. "You were wearing them yesterday."
He simply shrugged. "Can we go down for breakfast yet?"
"I think so," I replied. "The older students are leaving. I need to put this back upstairs, you guys go ahead if you want."
"And miss the walk downstairs with you? Never!" they half yelled.
I laughed and made my way upstairs to my dorm, where everyone was finally up.
"Morning all," I greeted cheerfully. There were a few grumbled replies.
I put the letter in my rucksack, along with the quill and extra parchment, and made my way downstairs. Sure enough, James and Sirius were waiting, and together, we left the common room and made our way to the Great Hall – without getting lost, since we just followed a group of third years.
"We won't be able to follow someone to classes," James sighed. "As soon as we get our schedules, we should start looking around." He looked excited at the prospect.
The hall filled up by the time we finished eating, and at precisely nine o'clock, the four heads of houses started giving out timetables. Since we were first years, we got ours first.
"Transfiguration, break, potions, lunch, double charms, break, History of Magic," Sirius read out loud.
"So we'll get to use magic today?" I said excitedly.
"You've never done magic before?" James looked puzzled. "Not even when you were a baby?"
"My mum said I did, but I don't remember it," I said. "Have you used magic?"
"I make my room change colours sometimes," James shrugged.
"That's awesome!" I exclaimed as we walked up to the tower to get our books. "But I meant with a wand."
"Andy let me use her wand once," Sirius said. "I blasted the family silverware."
"You didn't get in trouble for that?" James asked skeptically.
"There's so much of that stuff no one even noticed it was gone," Sirius smirked.
We got our books and were looking for the Transfiguration classroom. We were joined by Lily, Alice, Remus and Peter. The first thing Remus did was apologize to James and Sirius.
"Relax mate," James said. "We yell in the morning, you kick us out. It's a system. No need to apologize."
Remus looked incredulous, then shook his head and introduced himself to the rest of us.
"And this is Peter," he said, pulling him forward. Peter only smiled in response. "Now where is this class?"
We found the class ten minutes later, just in time for the bell. As we took our seats, I noticed a cat in the front of the room, and nudged Lily, who was sitting next to me. The cat was walking on the teachers' table, looking at the register every few seconds – wait, cats shouldn't be able to read.
We had the class with the Hufflepuffs, and it was a few minutes before everybody had arrived.
Suddenly, the cat jumped down, and in front of us was Professor McGonagall.
"Next time, I will not tolerate latecomers in my class."
As we were still in awe of what happened, she called out our names and started her lecture. She told us what was expected of us, how she always needed our work to be submitted on time and how hard we needed to study. Then she started giving notes on Transfiguration, and by the end of the class, we hadn't even picked up our wands.
"Do all witches turn into cats?" I whispered to Lily as we packed our things.
"I have no idea," she whispered back. "But it wasn't mentioned anywhere in the books I read."
"What are you guys talking about?" Caroline asked from the bench in front of us.
I repeated my question.
"No, not all witches," came a reply. We looked up to see Professor McGonagall writing at her desk. "It's something only I can do in this school, you'll learn about it soon enough."
The rest of the day passed quickly and much in the same fashion. I was disappointed; I'd been looking forward to using magic.
"Cheer up, Shortie," Sirius said, stuffing his mouth with chicken pie at dinner. "We'll be doing magic in no time."
"Shortie?" I asked incredulously.
"Yeah, well, your name is a mouthful," he said.
"A mouthful of what? Chicken pie? And what's wrong with 'Ayesha'?"
"He's right, y'know," James reasoned. "Although 'Shortie' doesn't really suit you."
"It shouldn't suit anybody," Remus said from his seat next to Sirius. "It's a horrible name."
"Thank you, Remus!" I called out to him gratefully.
"But we're not calling you Ayesha either," James argued. "What's your full name?"
"Ayesha Rosaline Cooper. Why?" I asked, suspicious.
James and Sirius looked at each other. Then they grinned. Together. It was disturbing.
"What?" I asked, a bit scared of their behaviour.
"Rosie!" they yelled in unison.
"No! I don't like that name!"
"No, she's too tiny to be a rose," Sirius said, looking at me intently.
I groaned, putting my head down on my empty plate.
"Rosebud!" James clicked his fingers.
"I like it," Sirius agreed.
"That's even worse!" I told my plate.
"What's that, Rosebud?" I could hear Sirius smirking. I looked up and glared at him.
"This is NOT a thing. You will NOT call me Rosebud!"
I couldn't be bothered to correct them by the end of the day.
We started using magic the very next day, in the next Transfiguration class. My toothpick had now become a needle, and I kept it safely, since Mum had begged me to save my first piece of magic. We met all the other professors, like the tiny Professor Flitwick, who fell off his pile of books when Lily and I were the first ones to make our feathers fly and started racing them around the class; the ghost Professor Binns, during whose lecture Sirius and James actually fell asleep; Professor Slughorn, who kept saying he was sad that Sirius didn't end up in Slytherin like the rest of his family; and Professor Sprout, who actually taught Herbology. The Defence Against The Dark Arts Professor was new, a witch called Diane Jones, who seemed to be overly interested in Remus; Remus looked uncomfortable with the attention.
By Saturday afternoon, I figured out I wouldn't get any homework done if I hung around with James and Sirius, but if I didn't tell them to, they wouldn't get it done either. So I convinced them to finish all the work and have Sunday free and they reluctantly agreed. On Sunday morning, we went exploring around the castle and found the owlery, where I finally got to post my letter, which had increased in volume since the first day. We also found out where all the other classes were going to take place before lunch, and afterwards, we went outside, since James was being very insistent on seeing the Quidditch pitch. On the way there, Sirius and James explained all the rules of the game, and though I looked forward to watching a match, I couldn't imagine flying on a broomstick.
Two weeks later, James, Sirius and I had become close friends. We sat next to each other at meal times, and during classes, one of us would volunteer to sit next to Jonathan, who didn't like people talking during class. Even History of Magic, which was arguably the most boring class on Earth. We spent our free Friday afternoons sitting by the lake finishing homework, something that James, Sirius and I still argued about – homework was for Sundays, they would say, but they still did it with me anyway.
"There!" Sirius proclaimed on one such Friday afternoon. "All done."
"Did you write the Charms essay on the 'swish and flick' movement?" I asked, not looking up from my own Herbology essay.
"Dang it," he muttered. "I'm not writing that now. My hand's gonna fall off."
I smiled as he fell back into the grass, closed his eyes and pretended to sleep.
"Hey Remus! Peter! Come join us!" James yelled suddenly after a few minutes.
I looked up to see them walking towards us with a few books in their hands.
"Hey guys," Remus said. "We were just going to write our Charms essays."
"Well you're in luck," I said, rolling up my finished essay. "We're just going to start that one too. We can collaborate, if you want."
They looked unsure. "I don't know..." Peter said.
"Oh, come on, mate," James rolled his eyes. "It's just an essay. And you know Rosebud's amazing at Charms." That wasn't really true – just because James couldn't get his feather flying on the first day he regarded Charms with apprehension.
"Alright then." Remus and Peter sat down with their books, effectively blocking out Sirius's sunlight.
"Oi!"
"Sirius, we're doing the charms essay, if you want help, now's your chance."
The rest of the afternoon passed by quickly, and by curfew that night, we finished all our homework for the coming week.
It was sheer luck that I had never gotten lost in the castle. The first day, we had followed third years in the morning. Then, we stuck together, finding the classes and exploring the castle. I always thought I had a good sense of direction. But roaming around somewhere between the Owlery and the Great Hall, I had realised that wasn't true.
It was the first Saturday of October and the boys had said last night they were going to sleep in. I planned to as well, before I woke up at six and remembered it was Mum's birthday. So I wrote her a letter, and another for Isabelle, begging her to let me share her present. As the clock struck seven I got dressed and left Gryffindor Tower for the Owlery. On my way back I took a different path to avoid Peeves and his buckets of cold water and Merlin knew what else. And that's how I ended up bumping into someone and falling over.
"Watch it!" the other voice said sharply. I knew that voice.
"I'm sorry, I was lost," I said, sitting up.
It was Severus Snape. He got up too, immediately getting to his feet. "I wouldn't expect any better from a mudblood like you," he spat, and left.
I was so shocked by his words that I couldn't move for a moment. Severus Snape was Lily's friend, how could he treat anyone like that? And if that was his usual behaviour then how was Lily even friends with him?
I got to my feet and kept walking. Thankfully, I ran into Nearly Headless Nick – literally ran into him – and he showed me the way to the Great Hall, where breakfast was underway.
"Rosebud!" James greeted. "We were waiting for you in the common room, but Caroline told us you left already."
"Yeah, I went to the Owlery. It's Mum's birthday," I said, pulling a stack of toast. "And then I got lost. Peeves was setting up something so I took a detour."
"Cool! Wanna go see it later?" Sirius said, with a mouth full of cereal.
"Not really."
But, believe it or not, I found myself walking with the boys out the Great Hall and toward the Owlery.
I spotted Lily going outside with Snape and instinctively called out to her. She turned, asked Snape to wait and came over.
I didn't know whether I should tell her. He was her best friend. Surely, if he treated her the same way, she wouldn't have become friends with him?
"I just wanted to ask – have you done that potions essay?"
James and Sirius looked at me, probably wondering where this was going – we had finished the essay yesterday. Out of the corner of my eye I saw Snape's face – startlingly white against his black hair and robes.
"Sev and I are just going to write it now," Lily said.
"Oh well, I'll ask you about it later." She smiled and skipped off to the doors.
"What," James asked in a low voice, "was that about?"
"Yeah, we finished that essay yesterday," Sirius stated.
"It's just..." I bit my lip, remembering the time on the train when Sirius's cousin had done something similar. They had both been so angry. And this was a month later, when we could use a little bit of magic, and the target knew the same amount of magic. "Nothing. Just had a question, that's all." I started walking towards the Owlery.
"You're not telling us something," Sirius accused, both boys catching up with me.
"What? No!" I was surprised, was I really that bad at lying?
"Was it Snape?" Sirius was looking at me intently.
"How are you doing that? I can only tell she's lying!" James cried from behind us. I looked at him.
"How can you tell I'm lying?"
"So you are lying!" Sirius and James said smugly.
I groaned and turned away from them. "I ran into Snape, okay? He wasn't really pleasant."
"How can you expect someone to be pleasant when he has so much oil in his hair?" James wondered.
But Sirius was not done with playing Sherlock. "She's still not saying the whole story," he announced, overtaking me and walking backwards to face us.
"What?" I said, appalled.
"He did something bad, didn't he?"
I sighed. "I'm not telling you."
"Rosebud," James grabbed my hand, pulling me to a stop. "If he said something, or did something, you tell us, okay?"
"You're going to be really mad and put a dungbomb in his potion or something! It's not worth it!"
"Hey," Sirius said. "It's completely worth it, alright? And now, we're going to do that even if you don't tell us what he did. So, if you tell us, at least we'll know why we're doing it."
So I told them.
If it weren't for the untimely shower of Peeves's cold water and chalk mixture, I don't know what they might have done right then.
Even so, Monday morning, all Potions classes were cancelled for the day after a bag of dungbombs exploded and covered Severus Snape in that stinky dung smell, along with most of his incomplete Forgetfulness Potion; and James Potter, Sirius Black and Ayesha Cooper received the first two nights of detention in their seven year long run.
Severus Snape
I knew I shouldn't have called her that.
I was agitated that day, like I always was, because Mother was making me come home for Christmas. When she knew perfectly well that I was happy here, in Hogwarts, away from Father and his drinks. I had just written the letter which would make or break it - either Mother would burst into tears and let me stay where I wanted to; or she would storm into the Great Hall and drag me back. I was agitated enough that when Cooper bumped me, I called her a mudblood.
There was nothing wrong in doing so, she was, and still is, a mudblood.
I didn't remember that Cooper and Lily were friends until after I posted my letter, when I was standing at the window of the Owlery.
What if Cooper told her and she believed it? What if Lily got mad at me and stopped talking to me? What would I do then? Lily was the only one who knew all my secrets, the only one who talked to me because she wanted to, not because she had to. I stood there, at the window, shaking, thinking of what could happen.
I composed myself and found Lily, waiting by the Entrance Hall, like she had said. We were almost outside when Cooper called out to Lily. That was when I got really scared. Lily would never speak to me again.
But Lily turned around, her hair flying out behind her, and skipped back to me, grabbed my hand and pulled me out.
I don't know why she didn't tell Lily, but when the bag of dungbombs exploded in my face, I knew it was for revenge.
The only way I could keep Lily at my side was by lying.
I would do that. I'd do anything. I'd learn how to keep my emotions at bay, and learn how to lie. I would learn to lie in the face of anyone who stood in my way. Anyone in the whole world. Even Lily.
Anything for Lily.