Surprisingly, it wasn't just the whole of Gryffindor tower just seemed to accept that a strange, ten-year-old girl had appeared in the middle of the night - the entire school seemed to simply accept it and move on.

Max sat with John, Harry, Cortana, Ron and Hermione that morning. They bombarded her with questions, and she answered most of them without mentioning her wings or the School. The other questions she simply shook her head at, muttering "later."
She piled her plate high with food and began to eat. John gaped at her.

She was eating even more than he did. He filled his own plate and began to eat when she caught him staring.
"I haven't eaten in..." she counted on her fingers, "about five days." Immediately, Cortana stopped eating and stared at Max.
"Five days? Geez, even the Dursleys weren't that harsh. At the least we got at least a couple of berries a day." Ron and Hermione stared at all of them now.
"No food for five days, and a couple of berries a day?" Hermione began, concern evident in her voice.
"A couple of berries between us at one point, if I remember correctly," Cortana commented, "the Dursleys were really annoyed after Dudley ended up in that brazilian boa constrictor's enclosure."
"As bad as that sounds, Max has had it even worse if she hasn't eaten in five days. Where did you live before John found you?" Hermione asked.
"I'll tell you later. I'd rather not tell everyone in this..." she hesitated, "... school about my past."
After that, everyone simply dropped the issue.

After they had finished their breakfast - Max ate another two plates of food, telling them she needed at least three thousand calories a day - the group headed out to the lake.
After checking that she was out of sight of everyone but John, Cortana, Harry, Ron and Hermione, Max allowed herself to relax. Hermione was preparing to ask her about the pair of hand-cut slits in the back of her clothing when Max sat down, spreading her wings.
John chuckled at their flabbergasted expressions.
"Yup, I've got wings. Next question?" Max said simply.

"How?" Hermione asked, sitting down on the other side of from where John was sitting.
"The School," she spat into the lake. "A secret research facility. They mixed my DNA with a bird's - don't ask me which bird, I don't know - and ran all sorts of horrible tests like an electric maze."
"How long were you there?" Cortana asked, her unreadable expression hiding her sympathy.
"As long as I can remember - and I have a really good memory."
"How did you escape?" John asked. Max frowned.

"It was actually really weird. The dog cage I was held in-" Hermione gasped, interrupting.
"They kept you in a dog cage?" Max nodded.
"Anyway, I kind of just put my hand on the door - you know, like leaning on it - and the lock sparked and it flew open. I didn't question it, I just made a break for it. As soon as I got outside, I flew away. I've been running ever since."
Hermione nodded thoughtfully.

"When did you arrive in the forest?"
"About a day before John fought off that minotaur and found me." Ron stared at John.
"You fought off a minotaur?"
"With his bare hands. He could have killed it, too, but he didn't," Max told him.
"Bloody hell, John, that's a hard fight even for you!" John just shrugged.
"He wasn't that tough. One chop to the spine and he was down like a sack of potatoes."
"Bloody hell."

Potions lessons took place in one of the dungeons. John shivered - not only was it colder down here than other places in the castle, it also would have been creepy enough without all the pickled animals floating in glass jars on the walls.
"You are here to learn the subtle science and exact art of potion-making," Snape began. His smooth voice was almost a whisper, but they all caught every word. He had the gift of keeping a class silent without visible effort.
"As there is little foolish wand-waving in this class, many of you will struggle to believe this is magic. I don't expect you will truly understand the beauty of the softly simmering cauldron with its shimmering fumes, the delicate power of that creep through human veins, bewitching the senses..."
wow, John thought, I never would have thought Snape was a poet.
"I can teach you how to bottle fame, brew glory, even stopper death - if you aren't as big a bunch of dunderheads as I usually have to teach."

As the lesson continued, Snape put them into pairs and set them to mixing a simple potion to cure boils. He was just telling everyone to look at the perfect way Draco Malfoy had stewed his horned slugs when Cortana abruptly interrupted him.
"Neville! Don't add the quills yet!" Neville Longbottom jumped as she spoke, hurriedly dropping the quills back onto the desk next to him. Snape turned to look as Cortana hurried over to Neville from where she had been standing next to John.
"What are you doing, Potter?" he asked sharply as Cortana lifted Neville's cauldron off of the fire.
"Sorry, Professor. I was just stopping Neville from causing a disaster."

Snape glanced at Neville's cauldron, seeing the porcupine quills Neville had been about to add, and took five points from Gryffindor for interrupting him.

As the friends climbed the steps out of the dungeons after the lesson, Max - who had been sitting on the main stairs, waiting for them - bounded up to them.
"How was it?" she asked brightly.
"Snape is probably the meanest teacher," John began, "ever."
"Well, at least he's not these 'Dursley' people you told me about."
Harry grimaced.
"Something tells me that Snape could make the Dursleys look like kittens."

John, Cortana and Harry didn't hate many people at Hogwarts - but the one student they hated the most was Draco Malfoy, the snide, arrogant Slytherin who was never seen without his two giant, dim-witted friends Crabbe and Goyle. Still, Potions classes were the only ones they had with the Slytherins, so they didn't have to put up with him too much - that is, until flying lessons started. Gryffindor and Slytherin were learning together.
"Typical," said Harry darkly, "just what I wanted. The chance to make a fool of myself in front of Malfoy."
"Who says you're going to make a fool of yourself? Cortana and I have far more experience with falling than flying." Cortana glanced at John as he spoke, and he knew she had remembered their past life as well.
"So do I, remember?" Harry replied, "my feet have never left the ground unless it was because I was falling."
"Except for that one time when you ended up on the cafeteria roof," Cortana said, giggling slightly.
"I still have no idea how that happened."

At three-thirty that afternoon, Harry, John, Cortana, Ron and Hermione along with the other Gryffindors hurried down the front steps into the grounds for their first flying lesson. It was a clear, breezy day and the grass rippled under their feet as they walked down the sloping lawns towards a smooth patch of ground on the other side of the grounds to the Forbidden forest.
The Slytherins were already there, and so were twenty broomsticks lying in neat lines on the ground. Max, who had followed them to watch, settled herself down on a small rise close by as their teacher, Madam Hooch, arrived. Her yellow eyes focused on every student's face as she introduced herself.
"Well, what are you all waiting for?" she barked. "Everyone stand by a broomstick. Come on, hurry up."
John glanced down at his broom at the same time as Cortana and Harry. It was made of a dark wood, which he identified as rosewood - an odd choice, considering its weight - and the twigs were almost all straight. Cortana's was a quite light wood, possibly ash - again, quite heavy for a flying object - and some of the twigs were bent. Harry's was made of oak wood, but it looked worn, and most of its twigs stuck out at odd angles.

"Stick your right hand over your broom," Madam Hooch called, "and say: 'Up!'"
"UP!" everyone shouted.
Harry's and John's leapt into their hands immediately, John's doing so with considerable force. Almost everyone else's didn't. Hermione's simply rolled over, Neville's didn't move at all, and John had to fight back a snort of laughter when Ron's only lifter its handle, hitting him in the face. John and Harry glanced at one another.
"Just say it confidently, Cortana," John said encouragingly.
"Up!" Cortana said by way of reply, and the broom flew upward into her hand.

Madam Hooch then showed them how to mount their brooms without sliding off the end, and walked up and down the rows, correcting their grips. The friends were delighted when Madam Hooch told Malfoy he'd been doing it wrong for years. She stopped in front of John.
"Are you sure you've never ridden a broom before, mister Potter?" she asked, raising an eyebrow.
"Yup," John replied confidently.
"Well," she said, "that is a surprise, considering your perfect grip."
"I just did what felt natural, ma'am."
After she had finished, Madam Hooch strode back to the front.

"When I blow my whistle, you will kick off from the ground, hard," Madam Hooch began. "Keep your brooms steady, hover for a moment, and then lean forwards slightly and touch back down. On my whistle - three - two -"
But Neville, nervous, jumpy and frightened, pushed off before the whistle even touched Madam Hooch's lips.
"Come down, boy!" she shouted, but Neville was off, shooting forward like a cork from a bottle. John ducked as Neville shot right at him, narrowly passing over his head. Neville began to corkscrew as he lost control, clipping Max's shoulder as he hurtled past her. Eventually, he crashed into the ground a few feet away from where he had taken off, and John could hear the sickening crack Neville's wrist made over the splintering wood of the ruined broomstick.

Madam Hooch was at Neville's side beofre anyone could blink, her face as white as his.
"Come on, boy, up you come," she said, helping Neville stand. He whimpered, cradling his hand.
"Broken wrist," she murmured.
She turned to the rest of the class.
"All of you, keep your feet firmly on the ground while I take this boy to the hospital wing!" She began to hurry Neville towards the castle.
"And if I see a single broom in the air," she shouted at them, already halfway to the doors , "the one riding it will find themself out of Hogwarts before you can say 'Quidditch.'"

As soon as they were out of earshot Malfoy let loose a bark of laughter.
"Did you see his face, the great lump?" The other Slytherins joined in, and John caught sight of Max walking over, her face filled with the kind of calm that was more terrifying than rage.
"Look!" Malfoy exclaimed, picking up Neville's Remembrall from where it had fallen, "Longbottom's Remembrall!"
"Give it here, Malfoy," Harry said threateningly. He and John stepped forweard, facing Malfoy.
"How about... No. I'll leave it somewhere for Longbottom to collect." He leapt onto his broomstick and took off, shouting back. "Up a tree, perhaps?"
Max looked about ready to spread her wings and take off after him as John shook his head at her and jumped onto his own broom a second after Harry jumped onto his.
"No!" Hermione shouted. "Madam Hooch said to stay on the ground - you'll get us all into trouble!" Harry and John ignored her, shooting off like a pair of rockets.
"They've always been a bit... headstrong," Cortana told Hermione.
"Yeah, well, if they get expelled they can't say I didn't warn them."

Harry was a natural at flying, even with a rather beaten up old broom. John, on the other hand, was slightly unsteady. Nevertheless, the assembled students below were staring at both of them admiringly.
"Give it here, Malfoy, or I'll knock you off your broom!" Harry called.
"Oh yeah?" Malfoy replied, slightly uncertainly.
"Allow me," John said to Harry, hurtling off toward Malfoy like a bullet from a gun. He missed Malfoy, who swerved sharply to avoid him, but succeeded in catching his jaw with his fist. That glancing blow was enough to cause Malfoy to lose balance for long enough to send the Remembrall spinning off behind him.
Harry shot past John, a black-haired meteor as he dived toward the spinning glass ball.