When the sleepy Ravenclaws trooped down to breakfast the next morning, Razi was already tucking into the food, her Charms book open a little to the left of where she sat at what was technically the Ravenclaw table.
"Good morning," she said cheerfully, spreading jam onto another piece of toast.
"Nothing good about it," a boy grumbled from a little ways downt he table, his head pillowed on his arms.
"Good call, Pratchett," Amanda congratulated sleepily.
Razi ignored him, instead wrinkling her nose at the contents of Alyssa's breakfast plate. Alyssa ignored her in favor of digging into the bacon and eggs, while Delaney ignored everyone for the same reasons. There was no living with either of them until after breakfast.
It took a pile of bacon, a fried egg, three slices of toast, two glasses of pumpkin juice, a cup of tea, and twenty-six minutes before Alyssa managed speech, and even then it was more of a string of garbled sounds around a mouthful of more toast. Razi answered anyway.
"No, they haven't passed out schedules yet, and I've told you a million times that talking with your mouth full is disgusting. Your mother can't approve."
Alyssa swallowed and shrugged. It was early, and her mother wasn't there. Early for Alyssa, of course, was normal for most of her friends, for most of her enemies, and for most of the people she didn't care enough about to classify as either. Breakfast helped, though, so she and Razi chatted. If Razi talked more, it was mostly because Alyssa continued to nibble on a piece of toast. Eventually they noticed that Delaney wasn't participating.
"Laney?" Alyssa asked.
"Who? Nothing! What?" Delaney snapped to attention.
"All I said was your name," Alyssa informed her.
"Oh."
Razi and Alyssa eyed her suspiciously.
"Look," Delaney said hastily, "Professor McGonagall's passing out the schedules!"
Alyssa levelled a look at her friend but allowed herself to be distracted afterwards; she knew Razi would investigate further and tell her about it later.
Professor McGonagall was two people away when a conversation reached Alyssa's ears.
"-looking chummy," a snide male voice finished.
"Jealous?" a different voice asked, sounding amused. "She's only turned you down three times. Maybe Blythe has something Wesson likes."
"Like a penchant for-"
It took her a moment to realize they were discussing her brother and not her, which was unfortunate for someone of her intellect. In her defense, most people left Jonathan out of their gossip. He hadn't done anything more interesting than hex someone who had been cruel to her in her first year. She still got funny looks from the Slytherins over their second year.
"Ms. Blythe."
Alyssa looked up from her plate and her eavesdropping. Professor McGonagall was standing over her, eyebrow raised, and her tone told Alyssa that it wasn't the first time the professor had tried to get her attention. "Yes, Professor?"
"Your schedule, Blythe. Unless you've discovered some previously unknown talent for Divination I assure you you'll need it."
"No, Professor. I mean, yes, Professor." Alyssa blushed as she accepted her schedule and the other Ravenclaws snickered.
Professor McGonagall raised her other eyebrow to match the first, quieting Alyssa's tablemates instantaneously, and moved on to deliver Razi and Delaney's schedules without incident. She didn't even fumble with the removal of Razi's from further down the pile.
"Pratchett, do you know who got captain this year?" Alyssa asked as she and Razi bent over their schedules to compare.
"That would be me," he said. He sounded proud even if he didn't look up from where he was making notations on his own schedule. "I'll let you know when tryouts are, but they tell me you'll have some competition this time around. Some of the second years absolutely aced flying last year, and I think Berk is planning to go for Chaser instead of Seeker this year."
"I'll remember that." She couldn't help but be a little miffed – she'd been a Chaser since third year. True, Berk had been one before then (he was a sixth year) and had only been pushed into seeking when they had no other options, but surely Pratchett didn't really think a couple of second years would be better than she was.
"Excellent," Razi said. "We've got Charms and double Herbology together Tuesdays, double Potions Thursdays, and Defense Against the Dark Arts Fridays."
Alyssa made a face. The plus side of having classes was Razi was having class with Razi. The downside was that the other Slytherin fifth years would be there, too, including Avery.
"Potions with Gryffindor, too," Delaney sais excitedly.
"And Transfiguration," Alyssa said slowly after exchanging a look with Razi, no eyebrows necessary. "And History of Magic."
"What's so exciting about that?" Amanda asked, as confused as the other two.
"Oh, nothing," Delaney said with obviously fake nonchalance. An actor she was not. "It's just I think this is the first time we've had Potions with the Gryffindors."
"Except for first year," Alyssa said.
"And third," Amanda contributed.
"Remember, Alyssa kept complaining about Evans showing her up?" Razi prompted.
"I did not," Alyssa protested. "I merely pointed out that if Evans wasn't there I'd have been the top of the class! Slughorn did invite me to his club, you know."
"Snape has been heard to say the same thing," Razi said, "though to be fair I suppose he hasn't caught the eye of my illustrious head of house. You can't both be right."
Alyssa sniffed dismissively. Exposure to Potter and Black, however tangential, would have left her with a general distaste for Severus Snape over the years even if he hadn't been her competition. She supposed the best she could say about him was that he generally ignored Razi.
"Blythe's not interested in Wesson," someone behind her said in hushed tones.
"He's too busy giving me a hard time to be interested in Wesson," another voice, this one familiar, grumbled. "I was only five minutes after curfew."
Someone snorted. Alyssa rather thought it was the first person to speak. "Yes, Avery, I forgot the world revolved around you."
Alyssa lost the conversation again in the general hubbub of the hall. She looked up to meet Razi's quizzical look. "Just thinking," she said.
"Think on the move," Amanda advised, downing the last of her pumpkin juice and slinging her bag over her shoulder. "We'll be late to Charms if we don't hurry up."
Professor Flitwick started with his usual roll call before greeting the class with his usual warning. "Welcome! It's so good to see all of you back and ready to start your fifth year. This year we begin OWL studies. These, of course, cover quite a bit of new and complex magic, so I would like to take the opportunity to remind all of you of the attention and responsibility," he stressed the word, his eyes meeting Razi's for a moment, "you will need to practice and master the charms you learn here. Now, as I have had all of you for four years, I assume everyone has read the article on the swish and flick method I assigned over the summer…"
"I don't know why he reminds me to be responsible every year," Razi grumbled as Flitwick coaxed Cyrus Thomas into expounding on the various merits of different wand movements.
"Because you never are," Delaney hissed, looking up in brief anxiety as silence fell around the classroom. She needn't have worried; Flitwick was only ending the discussion so they could practice swishing and flicking the rest of the period.
"Nothing I've done since second year has affected anyone it wasn't supposed to," Razi said primly, relieved of the need to keep her voice any lower than normal.
"And wasn't that a catastrophe," Delaney muttered.
"Being deliberate and being responsible are two very different things," Alyssa said severely. She had, after all, been caught up in that catastrophe. Just because she wasn't above the occasional reminder, though, didn't mean she really bore any ill will. "Do you remember that spell you tried to make your notes legible only to you? Do you think it could have used a swish instead of a swat?"
"I think you all deserve a swat," Amanda cut in, "but I'm willing to negotiate if someone helps me with that squiggly swishing thing. I don't think I've got it quite right."
Delaney leaned over to help, earning three house points for generosity and purely by accident getting in the way of a paper projectile that Alyssa strongly suspected had been aimed at her. Her evidence? Avery's irritated face as Delaney incinerated the folded piece of paper without bothering to examine it.
"The first day and he's already starting," Alyssa told Razi as they trooped to the greenhouse for Herbology. Technically they had a break period, but all of the fifth years knew very well that the trek to the greenhouse was a long one even if you didn't run into any obstacles.
Razi's eyes flicked to Avery, and Delaney sighed.
"Now you've done it. He'll have nonstop detention for weeks or she'll turn his hair permanently blue or something."
"I am not averse to Avery having nonstop detention for years," Amanda informed Delaney before Alyssa could say anything.
"I just think it's a bit of an overreaction to a piece of paper is all," Delaney defended herself.
"It isn't the paper," Amanda said. "It's the principle."
"And the principle is that I can deal with it myself," Alyssa interrupted. "Mostly. As I've told you. It's just irritating, it's not like he's covered me with acid."
"Yet," Amanda muttered darkly as they entered the greenhouse.
Razi snorted. "I don't need to do anything to him at the moment, anyway."
"I do not want to know," Delaney told her, low and forceful. "I am a prefect and I can't know these things."
"Can't and don't want are two different things," Razi replied sweetly just to be difficult. "I haven't noticed Lupin having any crises of conscience."
"You wouldn't notice anything about Lupin unless he wanted you to," Delaney replied as they entered the greenhouse only a few minutes early.
Razi shrugged at Alyssa, who shrugged back.
