AN:- And another chapter! I quite enjoy writing Lisa and Sally. Lily's just the straight man.
Chapter Four: Flying Lessons
The days fell into a routine quickly enough. Every morning she rose when the lights flared on, hurrying past a cursing Pansy Parkinson to get first use of the showers, and then she headed up to breakfast. Most of her time in the Slytherin Common Room and dormitories seemed to be spent avoiding Pansy, who made no secret of her dislike for the quiet bookish girl she was forced to share a dormitory with.
Lessons were just as fun as she had imagined, and she quickly discovered an aptitude for Charms, as long as she wasn't being distracted, when things tended to take a turn for the disastrous or explosive. She didn't get to work with Sally very often anymore, since the Hufflepuff girls seemed determined to keep them apart. Instead she worked with Daphne Greengrass, who didn't quite have the natural flair of other students.
Transfiguration lessons were as hard as everyone said, and no matter how much effort she put in she didn't seem to be able to transfigure anything at all. It was like she had a block against changing things into other things, even when it was something small like a matchstick into a needle. Astronomy was one of her least favourite classes, taking place as it did at midnight on a Thursday at the top of tallest tower. It meant that she practically sleepwalked through her classes on Friday, so tired from having stayed up.
She managed to sit next to Lisa in History of Magic, mostly because no one actually noticed that they were sitting together, so bored by Professor Binns lecturing that most of the class sank into soporific stupor before they were even five minutes. She and Lisa talked about their classes and sometimes shared notes, but Lily stayed quiet when Lisa asked her how things were going in the Slytherin Comon Room.
Because the truth was things weren't going very well. Malfoy took every opportunity he could to make fun of her for having lived among muggles, and a lot of older years joined in with him as well as her own year mates. The entire house seemed to be divided into two groups, those who completely ignored her, and those who joined in the bullying. And there was Daphne, who would smile and talk to her, but only when there was no one around to see.
She would wake up to find that her ink had mysteriously spilled in her bad and all her homework was covered in blue smudges, or that her tie had somehow gotten lost in the Common Room somewhere, and so she was late for breakfast because she had been searching for it.
But she could deal with it, she decided, because it was just petty people doing petty things. Snape wouldn't have stopped it anyway. He liked Draco more than any other student in the school, and everyone knew it. Whenever he was around Lily his mouth tightened and his eyes flashed with what looked like anger. She didn't know what she could have done to annoy her head of house, but it seemed to make more sense to stay away from him.
The rest of her teachers were a little nicer, and Flitwick in particular lavished praise on her whenever she managed something, awarding her points almost every lesson. She also found she had a knack for Herbology, and Professor Sprout even gave her full marks on her first piece of homework. Herbology was another class they had with Ravenclaw, and the amount of chaos in the classroom meant that she was sometimes able to work with Lisa then as well, but more often than not her housemates pulled her away to discuss something interesting about one of their books.
She reached Friday feeling like her brain was about to start leaking out of her ears. She had never been expected to learn so much in such a short amount of time, and the lack of sleep was starting to take its toll. She had been up until past midnight the night before trying to finish the three foot essay for Potions that Snape had set them, and she hadn't even started on researching the different types of fertiliser for Professor Sprout.
Most students were taking advantage of the weekend to sleep in so she had the whole table practically to herself. There were some fifth and seventh year students up as well but she was the only first year Slytherin awake. It was a similar story at the other tables, some older years already starting their work for OWLs or NEWTs, but other than that the hall was empty. She looked to the staff table and saw that most of the teachers seemed to be taking the day off as well.
Normally she only had a bowl of porridge or cereal in the mornings, but the smell of the bacon and sausages had grown more tempting as the week dragged on. At home she hadn't been allowed to eat what she wanted, and she had never been allowed to have second helpings. Now she finally gave in, and piled her plate high with everything she had ever thought she might want for breakfast and started in.
Lisa wasn't used to sleeping late, but after the week she had had she intended to use every second of her Saturday morning. When the first rays of light intruded on her she simply rolled over and pulled the covers up higher. When the first shuffling of the other girls waking up roused her again she held one of her pillows over her head until the noise was muffled enough to let her drift off again.
Finally, when Padma dragged the covers off her, she woke up.
"Breakfast!" The other girl announced, sounding far too cheerful. "We're all going down together, so hurry up!"
Grumbling light-heartedly about pushy roommates she got dressed and followed them out and down the staircase. As was usual they started talking about what they had learned in Transfiguration the day before, when they had been asked to change their needles back into matches. Most Ravenclaw discussions got pretty deep into the meaning of magic, but Lisa had heard some of the older years having similar discussions and couldn't even understand half of what they were talking about.
They were discussing right down to the table, at which point the Ravenclaw boys, who were already there, joined in as well, and soon they had dragged some second years into it. It wasn't quite like the raucous Gryffindor table, where everything was shouted at full bellow, but some of the Ravenclaws could get pretty heated when it came to magic, and soon the whole house had broken off into debates.
Taking advantage of the discussion moving away from her little group Lisa piled her plate with food and looked over to the other house tables, trying to spot her friends. She had gotten on well with Lavender in their Defence Against the Dark Arts classes, and of course whenever they had Transfiguration Sally insisted on working with her, which was often an adventure in keeping your eyebrows un-transfigured.
She looked over to Slytherin and saw Lily, for once eating something more than porridge, and decided that she was going to try and corner the girl at some point. Every time they had had a lesson she had tried to talk to her but Lily had been distant. Lisa knew enough about Slytherin to guess that her year mates weren't being very nice to her, and she wanted to make sure her friend was okay.
Finished with breakfaster, Lily went back to the common room and collected her books, deciding that she might as well try and get her essay finished early instead of putting them off. She decided that the library would be a better place to study than the common room, what with Malfoy once more entertaining people with tales of how he used to fly around the countryside whenever he wanted.
Finding the library was a job in itself, but when she had finally stopped accidentally going out into the courtyard for the dozenth time she finally made it, and set her books down on one of the tables to begin working. She liked the library; it had the proper sort of smell, slightly musty but with hints of some deeper scents, like the leather bound books or the enchantments to help people find what they were looking for.
She quickly settled into the work and had her Herbology essay done in less than an hour. She was just getting started on the Transfiguration work when something hit her in the back of the head. She looked round, seeing a piece of parchment on the desk next to her. She looked to see who had thrown it, intending to give them a piece of her mind, and saw Lisa and Sally sitting at another table, looking smug with a small pile of scrunched up pieces of parchment in between them. Lily looked down and saw that the floor around her was littered with other bits of parchment.
She stood and carried her books over to the other girls, "Can I help you?"
Lisa smiled, "We want to do some exploring, and thought you might like to come along?"
Lily raised an eyebrow, "Adventuring?"
"Hogwarts has got all sorts of secret passageways and hidden rooms," Lisa reminded her, "And I've been told about one I have to try."
"And you want me to come along?"
"Of course," Lisa stood and got on one side of her as Sally stood to the other. They steered her towards the door, "It's time we enjoyed the fact that we're in a magical castle."
It took them nearly an hour to find the North Tower, and then another twenty minutes to find the staircase that led them to the top instead of the bottom, despite the fact that the steps led upwards. Lily was still trying to get her head around that as they finally burst onto the top floor, panting a little from the effort climbing the stairs.
"Now," Lisa said, "There should be a painting of an old bearded wizard around here somewhere."
They split up trying to find it, poking their heads around the doors of empty classrooms and searching every nook and cranny. At one point Lily walked past a patch of corridor for the third time to see a door that she could sweat hadn't been there before, but it only led to a broom cupboard. Just when they had started to get bored with the search Sally yelled out, "I've found him!"
The other two joined her in front of a full length portrait of an elderly wizard, who was rubbing his ears, "Not so loud young miss," He rasped, "Now what can I help you with?"
Lisa stepped forward with more confidence than she felt, "Well you see sir, it's the bowtruckles."
The wizard immediately became alert, and leaned forward as if they were engaging in a secret conference, "What about the bowtruckles?"
"They're raising havoc sir."
The effect was immediate; the wizard threw up his hands and rocked back in his chair. "The bowtruckles are raising havoc? Merlin save us the bowtruckles are upon us!" The portrait swung forwards and revealed a long slide that was in total blackness. Before any of the girls could do anything else the stone slab they were standing on tipped forward and catapulted them into the tunnel, screaming all the way.
The minute they were inside the tunnel Lily felt water rush over her, soaking her to the skin and weighing down her robes. Rather than stones slamming into her back, like she would have expected, the inside of the tunnel was smooth and slick, letting them gather speed as they thumped round the bends at speed.
Once Sally had gotten over her shock she started to cheer and whoop as they shot down through the castle, and Lily had to admit she had a point. She couldn't help but join in, yelling her head off as the tunnel spiralled round. At the front Lisa joined in the catcalling, and they dropped faster and faster.
Lily was just beginning to worry what would happen when they reached the bottom of the tower when suddenly she realised that they were levelling out to a degree, still zooming along at a fair pace but no longer about to slam into a dead stop. The tunnel started to get lighter and a second later they were heading up instead of down, flying out of the end and sailing out over the lake.
Lily got a good glimpse of the boathouse and the far side of the lake before they hit the water, sinking a few feet before coming back to the surface spluttering and laughing. "Oh I am going to kill that prefect!" Lisa laughed, starting a clumsy dog paddle towards the boathouse, the other two following her.
"Wait, you got that from a prefect?" Lily couldn't help but laugh, "No wonder it was a trap."
When they arrived at the boathouse there was a small group of older years waiting for them, towels slung over their arms and big smiles on their faces. One of them Lisa recognised as the Ravenclaw prefect who had suggested the adventure. "You flew further than I did at least," She said, "Welcome to the club," She said jovially as she helped Lisa onto the side and wrapped a towel around her shoulders, "Remember to tell some poor first year when you're older."
Sally huddled the blanket around herself, "You were told to do this as well?"
"When I was a first year I overheard one of the seventh years talking to his friend about it. I didn't realise he was setting me up until he came to meet me with a towel."
Lisa snorted a laugh and shook herself like a dog, soaking Lily once more. Lily took her glasses off and tried to dry the before they started steaming up, wondering quite how they'd managed to stay on during the wild ride. The older years bustled them up the long stairs back to the castle. "So have all of you gotten caught out by that portrait?" She asked; there seemed to be a lot of them.
"Oh yeah," A boy in a Gryffindor scarf said, "It's a very exclusive club you've just joined."
That made Lily smile, but she also couldn't see any other Slytherins there.
"They get caught out as well," One of the Ravenclaws had read her expression, "They just don't usually laugh about it afterwards."
Lily frowned and hunched deeper into her towel. The older years looked uncomfortable, but Sally at least didn't pick up on it. "That was so much fun," She said, "I wanna do it again, does he let you ride it twice?"
The older years laughed, "Yeah, he's a bit absent minded, so you can do it as often as you like," The Gryffindor girl said, "But you never end up in the same place twice."
"It changes every time?" Sally's eyes glistened with excitement, "Now I have to do it again!"
They were halfway up now, and Lily was finally starting to feel dry again. One of the older years examined them and pulled his wand out, "I think I can do a drying charm on you if you want to risk it?"
Lily looked at him apprehensively, but Sally nodded and he waved his wand. Steam rose from her clothes and her hair went curly. Once they had seen that it went well Lily and Lisa acquiesced as well, and soon they were all dry and warm as they came in to the Entrance Hall. They split up when they got to the Great Hall, which meant that Lily had to walk over to the Slytherin table alone. It was lunch time and most of the house was there, but she managed to slide on the end of a bench and keep a reasonable distance away.
She envied Lisa and Sally, who were surrounded by their house mates as they discussed the water slide. She looked to the teacher's table and saw Professor Sprout looking at her and smiling. She smiled back and wondered whether any of the Professors had ever ridden the waterslide. As she returned to her meal she remembered the pile of homework she still had to do, and decided to skip dessert.
She rushed to get her books from the Common Room and headed back to the library, setting up in the same spot and plunging her nose deep into the books once more.
Lisa had decided that the best thing about being in Ravenclaw wasn't that people were willing to talk about anything, it was that they had so many different ideas and opinions that the talks could end up being about literally anything. And when the entire house would join in a debate that they thought was interesting, just to see if they could pretend to know about the subject… well it wasn't actually very surprising that what had a started as a discussion about the school's hidden passageways had ended up as a discussion about what sort of underwear Dumbledore favoured.
Still trying to shake off the memory of the one older year boy who had suggested 'commando' she collected her bag and head to the library, spotting Lily the minute she walked through the door. She heaved her bag next to the Slytherin girl and say, pulling out her own pieces of parchment.
"I'm not going water-sliding again," The girl muttered by way of greeting.
"I need help with Professor Sprout's fertiliser questions. I'm useless at Herbology."
They worked in silence for a while until someone else dumped their bag on Lily's other side and they looked up to see Sally sitting down and pulling out a half-finished essay that was more crossed-out words than actual sentences. "I can't understand this thing for Charms," She said, "Lily, help?"
Trying to hide a smile of gratitude, Lily reached over to point out the correct chapters.
AN:- I bet you thought the chapter title would be about the flying lessons with the Gryffindors and Slytherins didn't you? Didn't you? Ha, I have fooled you with my cunning, it's actually about them flying out of the castle!
Yeah that's a poor joke. Originally it was the chapter with the flying lesson, but then I wrote too much, so that's next chapter lesson.
