Disclaimer: I have never and will never own Harry Potter.

Chapter 10: To Have a Friend

Lily, Dawn, and Marica were the last from their dormitory to come down the stairs into the common room the next morning. Lily and Marica had only finally succeeded in dragging Dawn out of bed by threatening that if she didn't get up that minute she would miss breakfast. Cassiopeia, who had always been an early riser, was waiting for them, feet tucked under her, in one of the over-sized armchairs in front of the fireplace, braiding an elaborate plait out of several different colors of threads. She un-tucked her feet and slid out of the chair, slipping her plait into her robes. Then she trotted out of the portrait hole after the older girls.

"I love the first day of classes," said Marica. "It's so exciting!"

Lily and Dawn laughed.

"Only you would find going to classes exciting," said Dawn.

"Some classes are exciting," said Lily. "Like Defense."

"When we're practicing spells it is," conceded Dawn. "But not when we're taking notes."

I don't know, thought Cassiopeia, casting spells is more exciting, but learning information is interesting too.

The four girls sat down at the Gryffindor table and began to eat their breakfasts.

"Hi, Rose," said Lily, sliding into the seat across from her cousin.

"Hi, Lily," said Rose. "How're you?"

"Good. Have they given out class schedules yet?"

"No, Professor Longbottom's coming along with them now." Professor Longbottom, who was the head of Gryffindor House, was walking down the Gryffindor table, handing his students their schedules.

"We've got Care of Magical Creatures with the Slytherins and then Herbology with the Ravenclaws," said Marica, looking at her schedule. "And Lily and I've got Arithmancy, then we all have Transfiguration and Charms."

Dawn glanced down at her own schedule. "I've got a free period while you're in Arithmancy, cool."

"Going to use it to do homework?" asked Marica.

Dawn looked at her askance. "Are you crazy?"

Cassiopeia examined her own schedule. Potions was first on the list. Great, a perfect start to the week, she thought sarcastically. But the day got better after that; she had Charms and then Defense Against the Dark Arts. And after lunch she had History of Magic, but she also had Transfiguration.

Lily finished her last piece of toast and rose from the table.

"Come on," she said. "Let's go. The last thing we need is to be late to class on the first day of term."

*****BWST*****

"I can't believe Professor Longbottom gave us homework on the first day of classes," moaned Dawn as they walked up the path to the castle for lunch.

"Oh, Dawn stop whining," said Marica. "It's only looking up a few definitions."

"It's still homework," said Dawn. "We didn't have homework on the first day of term last year!"

"We weren't preparing for our O. last year."

"Those are almost two years away!" Dawn protested.

"You'll be glad to be prepared when it comes time to take the tests," said Rose sagely as they sat down at the Gryffindor table.

"I'd rather be glad now," grumbled Dawn as she helped herself to some scalloped potatoes.

Cassiopeia slid into the seat beside Lily that the other girls had automatically left open out of habit.

"I bet she hasn't got homework yet," said Dawn.

"I have," said Cassiopeia. "Potions," she said, making a face.

"I love Potions," said Lily, grinning.

Cassiopeia shook her head, and Lily could have sworn she heard the younger girl mutter "Mental."

*****BWST*****

The first two weeks of school went by as normally as could be expected at Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry. A couple of cauldrons exploded in Potions, someone was bitten by the Venomous Tentacula during Herbology, a creature or two got loose during Care of Magical Creatures, and Albus and Scorpius set off a couple Weazleys' Wizard Wheezes firecrackers during Transfiguration, but other than that it was rather uneventful.

Cassiopeia decided that she liked second year even better than she had liked first. She still didn't have any friends besides Lily, but she was feeling more comfortable with her dorm-mates and other house-mates, she found her lessons even more interesting, and she was starting to figure out all the intricacies of the castle. After all, she had a very good memory and lots of time on her hands, and she had been mentally constructing a map of the castle piece by piece inside her head. She had heard from Scorpius about the Maurader's Map that Albus Potter's older brother James had, and she would have loved to get her hands on it, it sounded amazing. Maps had always fascinated Cassiopeia, as had traveling and foreign cultures. Cassiopeia also had an ear for languages. She already spoke fluent French, since her family went to France every summer, and she was fairly good at German and Spanish and had a smattering of Italian, Danish, and Swedish. Next she hoped to learn some of the Asian languages, perhaps Korean or Japanese, and she'd love to learn some sort of African dialect too. Still, she was only twelve years old. She had plenty of time.

Lily, meanwhile thought that fourth year wasn't really so bad either. True, the work was harder, and the teachers were sterner, but they were also getting to learn a lot more advanced and interesting things in class, and doing a lot more practical work for subjects like Defense Against the Dark Arts and Charms. The homework was harder, and there was more of it, but at least she didn't have other activities competing with it, such as Dawn's Quidditch and Marica's Wizards' Chess Club, of which she was now Secretary. Dawn and Marica kept telling her that she should get involved in something, but none of the clubs, teams, or organizations at Hogwarts held much interest for her. Tamzen told her that what she needed was a boyfriend, but she ignored this piece of advice as well. What she would have liked was to learn how to speak another language. Since her aunt Fleur was French she spoke French quite well, but she only knew a handful of words in any other language besides English, if any at all. Over the summer she had developed an interest in foreign cultures and languages from, of all things, a Muggle magazine called National Geographic that Dawn had brought back with her from America. She had ordered a long-distance subscription to the Magazine, plus a subscription to a similar wizarding magazine, and had checked out some books from the library to help her learn Spanish, which she judged as a fairly easy beginner language, since it had many similarities to both English and French. But she was frustrated with her progress. As for Cassiopeia, Lily found that she really didn't mind the other girl's presence, though it still confused her greatly.

River, too, thought that Lily should get involved in some sort of school activity.

"Why don't you come with me to the Gobstones Club," River said, catching up to her as they exited the Great Hall after dinner.

Lily shook her head. It always amused her that River Thurshall, tall, dark, and handsome Quidditch player, was the vice-president of the Hogwarts Gobstones Club.

"No thanks, River," she told her friend.

"Aw, come on, why not, Lily?" said River.

"'Cause I don't want to," said Lily.

"But you like playing gobstones!"

"Yeah, as a hobby," said Lily. "But I don't want to commit an evening of my week to playing gobstones!"

"But we don't just play Gobstones," River protested. "We look at news about Gobstones, and compare Gobstones and trade Gobstones and—"

"I get it, I get it," said Lily, laughing. "Sounds great."

"So how about it?" said River eagerly.

"No thanks, River," said Lily. "You go ahead. I'll see you later." And, waving, she followed Dawn and Marica up the marble staircase, Cassiopeia at her heals.

River watched them disappear with a disappointed look on his face.

*****BWST*****

September was a dreary month in the weather department. It rained almost incessantly, and there was a chill in the air altogether too biting for this early in the year. This kind of weather made classes like Care of Magical Creatures particularly miserable. The fourth years were learning about hippogriffs. Hippogriffs had been a third year lesson when Lily's parents had been in school, and then had been taken out of the curriculum altogether for a number of years. Recently they had been reinstated, this time into the fourth year lesson plan.

"Alrigh'," said Hagrid to the soaked and shivering fourth year Gryffindors and Hufflepuffs who were huddled as close together as possible under the awning of Hagid's cottage. "Today we're goin' ter be startin' our work with hippogriffs. Who can tell me somethin' about them?"

Lily, some of whose earliest childhood memories involved a hippogriff named Buckbeak, who had died five years ago when she was nine, raised her hand.

"Lily?"

"A hippogriff has the front half of an eagle and the back half of a horse," said Lily. "They're really proud, and you should always look them in the eyes bow and then wait for the hippogriff to bow back before you get any closer. They can be really nice and loyal once they trust you though."

"Very good, Lily," said Hagid with a proud grin. "That jus' about sums it up. I have three hippogriffs around back an' yeh can take turns approachin' them and bowin'. If they don' bow back after a few seconds yeh'd best back up an' try a different one."

The class, dripping and scowling, moved around back into the yard where the three hippogriffs, looking equally drippy and miserable, were waiting.

It would have been a good class if it weren't for the awful weather. Lily, who had experience with and was comfortable around hippogriffs, went first, and had no problem getting a palomino by the name of Feathergold, to bow to her. By the end of the lesson, everyone in the class had gotten at least one hippogriff to bow to them, and Leela had gotten all three, even petting them softly on the heads. Some of the other students looked at her rather jealously when she did this.

"Next time we'll be workin' on groomin' 'em," said Hagrid. "An' when we're done with that we can go on ter feedin' an' ridin'."

Lily, Dawn, and Marica trudged back up to the castle with the intention of changing into dry clothes before going down to lunch. Cassiopeia, whose last class before lunch had been Herbology, fell into step behind them, having gotten almost equally wet in simply walking to and from the greenhouses.

"I feel like I jumped in the lake with my robes on," complained Dawn, ringing out the hem of her robes.

"I know what you mean," Marica commiserated. "I don't think it's possible for us to be any wetter."

"Don't say that too loudly," said Lily warningly. "If Peeves hears you I'm sure he could find a way."

Luckily, the four girls made it up to Gryffindor Tower and back down to the Great Hall without incident, where they were very glad to discover that lunch consisted of toasted cheese sandwiches and hot tomato soup.

*****BWST*****

By that evening the weather had become so bad that even Quidditch practice was canceled, so Dawn joined Lily and Marica in front of the common room fire to work on their homework.

"I can't concentrate with all that rain pounding on the windows," said Dawn. "It's simply too early for this kind of terrible weather!"

Marica shrugged. "Tell that to Mother Nature. Kudos if she listens to you."

Andrew Davies, another Gryffindor fourth year and Dawn's fellow Chaser on the Griffindor Quidditch team, threw himself down into the chair next to Dawn.

"Man, this sucks," he said, running a hand through his straw-colored hair, making it stick up in every direction. "How are we supposed to win that match against Slytherin if we can't even practice?"

"I know," said Dawn. "But at least the Slytherins can't practice either. Madam Hooch officially called off all practices until further notice due to 'unsafe conditions'.

Davies kicked a booted foot against the table.

"Hey!" protested both Marica and Cassiopeia, as their work was knocked to the ground.

"Oops, sorry," said Davies, stilling his swinging leg. "I'm just restless."

"Me too," said Dawn. "I need to be active, to do something. I can't just sit around all day! I'll go crazy!" She waved her arms wildly, almost knocking her own homework off the table.

Davies caught Dawn's homework and set it back on the table, laughing. "I'm afraid it's a little late for that one, Dawn," he said jokingly. She stuck her tongue out at him.

"Aw now, don't do that to your pretty little face," he said. "You're supposed to be a lion, not a snake."

Dawn wrinkled her nose. "Well you look like a haystack," she informed him, pointing to his sticking-up hair.

He pretended to look very offended. "I happen to be quite proud of my hair, thank you very much," he said, showily smoothing it down with his hands. "Everyone thinks I'm quite imposingly handsome you know."

This made all four girls laugh out loud. Davies was a tall, thin, scarecrow of a boy, whose hands and feet always seemed a little too big for his body, and his head just the opposite. And he was just about as far from 'imposing' as you could get. There was no denying that he was a great Chaser though. He had made the team in his second year, a fact he liked to playfully lord over Dawn, who had first tried out in her second year, but had only made the team in her third.

Davies stretched out his long legs under the table, but almost immediately leapt back up again, endangering the girls' homework once more.

"I can't sit here and study anymore," he said.

Were you studying? thought Cassiopeia,eying the empty spot on the table in front of him and his closed schoolbag that was thrown carelessly on the floor.

"You weren't studying in the first place," Lily pointed out.

"You know what I mean," he said. "It's not a sitting still and studying kind of day."

"It is if you want to get good marks," muttered Marica.

Davies didn't hear her, or if he did he chose to ignore her. "I'm going for a walk. Who wants to come?"

"I've got work to do," said Lily and Marica at the same time.

"Dawn?"

"You're right, this isn't a sit and study kind of day at all," she said. "I'll come."

"What about your essay?" Marica called after her.

"I'll do it later," she threw over her shoulder as she and Davies left through the portrait hole, him holding it open for her with an extravagant bow, her giving him a good shove so that he fell through it headfirst, arms pinwheeling comically for balance.

"How our Quidditch team is any good with a couple of clowns like that as Chasers I'll never know," said Marica.

"It's a mystery," agreed Lily.

*****BWST*****

Two hours later Dawn and Davies came back through the portrait hole, flushed, dripping, and grinning like idiots.

"Where have you two been?" said Lily. "And why are you all wet?"

"We took a walk," said Dawn, giggling.

"Outside," said Davies, giggling as well.

Lily gave them a strange look. "What's so funny?"

They only laughed harder.

Lily looked at Marica, who looked just as confused as she did. Cassiopeia on the other hand, had her mouth quirked into a lopsided smile.

"What do you know that I don't know?" demanded Lily irritably.

Cassiopeia gave the redhead her most wide-eyed innocent look. If you can't figure it out for yourself I'm not going to tell you.

"Goodnight, Dawn," said Davies, heading toward the boys' staircase.

"Goodnight, Andrew," said Dawn, practically skipping toward the girls' stairs.

"Goodnight?" said Marica. "What about your essay?"

"I'll do it later," chirped Dawn over her shoulder as she disappeared up the staircase.

"What's gotten into her?" said Lily.

*****BWST*****

The next evening Lily and Marica (Dawn was at a Quidditch meeting, since actual practice was still canceled due to the weather) were making a rather half-baked effort on their Ancient Runes translations in the library. Cassiopeia, of course, was seated at the next table, reading her History of Magic textbook while her fingers busily worked at the elaborate plait resting in her lap.

All three girls looked up as someone came through the library door.

"Oh no," groaned Marica.

It was Sasha Redmond, a preppy, uppity Ravenclaw in their year. She and Marica had been best friends when they were little, but during their first year they had gotten into a huge fight and now they couldn't even be in the same room with each other without throwing flames. Sometimes literally, as Lily had occasion to remember from their second year.

"I'm leaving," said Marica, standing up and gathering her things into her bag. "I'm not staying here if she's here. Are you coming Lily?"

"In a minute," said Lily, who really didn't have a problem with Redmond, other than the fact that she was a little too preppy and uppity for her liking.

Marica stalked out of the room, looking pointedly in the opposite direction as Sasha Redmond said something to her group of friends, who laughed loudly.

"Shhhh!" said the librarian, Madam Tuftly.

Lily turned back to her work, determined to at least get something done before she returned to the common room. After a few minutes she became aware somebody sitting in the seat across from her that Marica had recently vacated. She looked up.

Cassiopeia's round, pale eyes looked back at her. Lily jumped.

"Don't do that!" she said.

"Sorry," said the little girl. "My table was taken over." She jerked her head at the table she had been sitting at. It was now occupied by Sasha Redmond and several of her friends.

"Oh," said Lily, unsure of what else to say.

The two girls went back to their work, heads, red and blond respectively, bowed over their papers. But presently Lily raised her head again and contemplated the smaller girl sitting across from her.

Cassiopeia's long, fine blond hair hid her thin pointed face as she sat, chin propped up on one small hand, silvery-blue eyes focused intently on the page in front of her, her quill dangling loosely from the fingers of her other hand. Lily had always compared the pale young girl to a ghost, but really she looked more like some sort of nymph.

Sensing Lily's eyes on her, Cassiopeia looked up inquiringly from her work

Lily twirled her quill absently around in her fingers.

"Little Malfoy," she said. "Er—Cassiopeia, can I ask you a question?"

"You just did," the younger girl observed with a small smile, the corrected use of her first name not escaping her.

Lily found her the corners of own mouth curling upward in response. "Well, can I ask you another one then? After this one I mean."

Cassiopeia bobbed her head in assent.

"Well..." said Lily, now sucking on the end of her quill. "Why did you decide to follow me around all the time? I never gave you any encouragement. I didn't even like you. So...why?"

"You were my only friend," said Cassiopeia simply.

Lily gaped at her. "Friend? But—I never said I was your friend!"

"Scorpius did," said Cassiopeia, the thought suddenly dawning on her that maybe Lily hadn't thought of them as friends.

"And you just—just took his word for it?" said Lily incredulously. "You never thought that maybe the fact that I never once acted like your friend meant anything?"

Cassiopeia shrugged. "How was I supposed to know that you never acted like my friend? I've never had any friends before. I knew you didn't particularly like me, but I liked you, and that's more than can be said for my mother and some of her friends."

"But I told you to go away!" said Lily.

"Scorpius tells me to go away all the time," said Cassiopeia, shrugging again.

Lily blinked. "So...why did you never talk to me, if we were supposed to be friends?"

"You never talked to me," Cassiopeia pointed out.

That was true enough, Lily acknowledged, wondering why in the world she had never thought of simply asking Cassiopeia why she was shadowing her before.

"You've started talking more lately," Lily realized. "Not much, but some. And you're more...present. And on the train..."

"Yeah," said Cassiopeia. "That was really weird. I mean, Scorpius and I have conversations like that all the time, but no one else usually picks those things up."

"What things?"

"The things I'm thinking," said Cassiopeia. "I really do pay attention you know."

Something suddenly dawned on Lily. "It's not that you don't ever have anything to say, is it?" she asked slowly. Cassiopeia shook her head. "You just don't know how to say it, do you?"

Cassiopeia nodded. "Somehow it gets stuck between my brain and my mouth," she said. "I can't believe I'm even having this conversation with you. Usually I just—"

"Watch," finished Lily.

Cassiopeia nodded again.

Lily looked at the younger girl with new eyes. She had never realized there was so much going on in Little Malfoy's head. She had always assumed that the fact that she wasn't saying anything meant that she wasn't thinking anything either. Which was silly, she reprimanded herself, since she often held her tongue and kept her thoughts to herself, especially when around her loud, exuberant family.

Now Cassiopeia bit her lip and swung her feet, which didn't quite reach the floor. "So—er—Lily?" she asked hesitantly.

"Yeah?"

"Does this mean we're not friends anymore?"

She felt a terrible sinking sense of loss in the pit of her stomach as she said the words. Even though—and now that Lily had pointed it out it seemed glaringly obvious—Lily had never thought of them as being friends to begin with, it still felt to Cassiopeia that she was losing something very important; though she couldn't figure out just why it should be so important. Everyone lost their first friendship at some point or another, but, she told herself with a note of cynicism, most people did it when they were four, not twelve.

"Well," said Lily. "I don't know about anymore, since us being friends is news to me." Cassiopeia's face fell just slightly. "But," she continued, surprising herself, "I don't see why we can't be friends from here on in. It's what our meddling older brothers intended in the first place."

Cassiopeia giggled, a warm bubbly feeling quickly replacing the sinking feeling in her stomach.

Cassiopeia's laughter was contagious, and soon both girls were doubled over in unexplainable fits of giggles.

"Shhhh!" said Madam Tuftly, which, of course, just made them giggle all the more.

This, Cassiopeia realized with a sense of wondrous delight as she and Lily finally got a hold of themselves, is what it really feels like to have a friend.

AN: As always, I'd love to get reviews from you and see what you think. I don't post just to see my story on the screen you know ;) I hope you liked the chapter. I'm assuming that if you're reading chapter ten you must like the story at least a little bit. Thanks for reading and to those of you who have favorited, alerted, and reviewed.

-SQ