I huffed a breath of semi-foggy air - my second lesson had just finished, and I've already gotten my broom to answer my commands on the ground. I even hovered in the air for a few seconds all by myself. Wood is pleased - he says that I've gotten over my fear, and that I'll be passing my test in just a few weeks if I keep up the pace.

But I beg to differ - he took me for a flight around the castle, to "remind me what I'm working towards" at the end of the lesson, and I still had trouble breathing. I actually became dizzy from lack of air and had to make Wood land.

That happened right after I asked him a question about technique and he told me to call him Oliver while we were in the air. I hadn't been breathing properly since we took off, and I guess that's when my brain, sans oxygen, started to rebel. I yelled that it didn't matter what I called him because suddenly Hogwarts had three times as many towers than normal and I wanted to land immediately.

We landed, I fell to the ground and as I waited to get the feeling in my legs back, Oliver, err, Wood made a smart ass comment about girls and weak stomachs.

Obviously, that didn't go over well.

I screamed, I cursed, I jabbed my finger into his face, and generally ignored the fact that he was my teacher. I made it very clear that he had no right to make assumptions about women and their weak stomachs when he came from a woman's stomach and wouldn't be here without one.

I said that all in one long breath before I stormed away toward the castle.

He must not be a person, I decided. Thank the lord that I don't have to go to lessons next week anyway. My class had formed a petition that stated that we, as seventh years, should be allowed to do something special for Halloween instead of just a stupid little banquet with everyone else.

Poor professor McGonagall was quite flabbergasted when, just a week back from vacation last year, she was given such a petition, and hardly knew what to do other than agree to our demands, after a meeting with the prefects.

So now Hagrid gets to tromp around the forest looking for a place for us all to camp out that isn't too dangerous. He told me, among the other angry mutterings about our brat year, that it was by a lake and it would be absolutely beautiful.

He's now spending the entire week camping out at the spot to make sure that it's safe. I have no idea who is covering his classes, but I vaguely remember Siren telling me that Wood had covered her class once. I figured, though, that the chances of him covering my class for the entire week as being nul. McGonagall wouldn't put me on that much of a Wood-overload.

Cause we all know what happens when I've got too much Wood. Hint: It was how I met him second year, and has happened pretty much whenever I've been near him since.

"Hey," I yawned at Penny as she leaned against a tree to the side of the path leading down to Hagrid's hut. She and I were in the 'advanced' class together, our first class on a Monday morning. Actually, I couldn't think of a better class to wake up to on such a horrid day.

"Hey," Penny smirked back at my too-tired-stupor.

I hadn't been getting enough sleep these past few weekends because of certain lessons I was taking. It cut into homework time and I'd been in the habit of leaving all homework to the weekends.

I stumbled next to her as she continued, "So, leaving Friday morning for the camping trip. Excited?"

"Not even remotely," I told her. Camping wasn't a fear of mine or anything, it just seemed... uncomfortable.

"You obviously haven't heard whose leading it," Penny smirked at me. The girl who slept next to her was in charge of the trip, and she knew most, if not all, of the details.

"Who, Rogers?" Professor Rogers was our new Defense against the Dark Arts teacher, and he was the only teacher I could see leading the trip and being decent.

"Oh, no, think much more amusingly."

"Wiggins," I guessed as we arrived at Hagrid's hut, rubbing at my eyes.

"Oh, come on, you're gonna love it."

"I'm not gonna love the trip in general, you mine as well just tell me," I told her, scratching at the base of my ponytail before pulling it out and letting my hair fall in front of my face in a messy pile. I'd heard whoever it was who shared my bathroom with in the shower this morning, and simply left to get breakfast.

I started to comb through it with my fingers as Penny begged, "No! It's not any fun if you don't guess!"
"It's no fun either way," I grumbled, "Tell me now."

"Cranky puss."

"Hello class," I groaned openly at the accent, my hair still tangled in front of my face. I heard Wood's heavy footsteps pause next to me, "Hello, Cousin It." I want to kick him in the face SO badly right now. "I'll be covering your Care of Magical Creatures class for the week, so if I could clearly make out your faces it would be most helpful."

The class laughed politely at his joke, and I gathered my hair into its unruly ponytail as he started taking role. Penny smirked, "Well, speak of the devil."

"Thank you," I said, "Someone else understands how absolutely intolerable he is!"

"No, no, he's not the devil, but he is the chaperone for our class trip."

"WHAT?!"

"Darling, I know your last name is not Retz, so if you'll please not cover for whomever it is who may or may not be here, I promise not to give you a detention."

...

ARE YOU KIDDING ME!? God has got to hate me. There is no other plausible explanation to how I manage to have so much horrible luck. It's not even a joke, I don't want anyone to be laughing, God seriously hates me.

It's not funny.

"You've got to be joking," I grabbed Penny's arm, dragging her to the back of the pack of students as they followed the bane of my existence towards the forest to study some sort of magical freaking slug.

"No, he volunteered apparently. Said he thought it would be a great opportunity to get to know the school better."

"He just wants to get to know the girls who are drooling all over him! God, he's probably going so he can illegally bang some poor shy seventh year who thinks they'll get together."

"Yeah, like you," Penny snorted with laughter into her hand.

"No, this is serious, he's gonna get someone hurt! He doesn't know how to deal if a freaking creature tries to kill us!"

"You'd better start studying up," Penny joked, "ON HIS BODY!" Her voice rang through the woods, and a few people gave us odd stares as she started to crack up, "I wouldn't be able to defend anyone either if I was-"

I jumped up to cover her mouth and smile apologetically at everyone, "Sorry."

"Everything alright back there," Wood called, not bothering to look back at us.

"Yeah," I screamed back up, "Just fine! Penny just... stepped on a snail."

"Well, bite your tongue next time, it's just a snail."

"Yes sir," I called back. I kept my hand over Penny's mouth as I began to lecture her, "Now, Penny, it is much too early in the morning for you to be starting new rumors. In fact, it will always be too early for you to be starting new rumors. Now if I open your mouth and one bit of false information about me and Wood spews out of your mouth, I will permanently sew your mouth shut. Clear?"

Penny nodded, a sour look on her face when I removed my hand. She spit, as if she had licked me hand and it had tasted horrible, "Man, you really are being cranky today."

"I just stopped appreciating the joke that was never funny."

"Fine, fine, whatever," she muttered, wiping what spit hadn't quite managed to fly off her face, "Sorry I even mentioned it."

I brooded as I made my way towards the far left side of the class as we stopped to marvel at the slimy pieces of matter that Hagrid had been lecturing us on and teaching us about for the past week. I ignored what Wood was saying, instead taking to making various accords with God so that Wood could magically not be our chaperone.

I've got faith that it'll happen, too. I mean, I can make things fly by saying the right words and having a piece of polished wood - you think offering my free will won't get me out of a bad situation?

I tugged at the end of my ponytail as I stood at the door to the library - apparently Penny had taken my mini-blow-up personally, a bad habit of both Susan and Penny. Willow scolded me for it at dinner, and now I had to apparently to go play nice for a few minutes so that Penny's own personal sky, which was of course the real sky because she's just that important, would stop falling.

You know, for a group of girls who are generally rejected as freaks among the magical public, you'd really think we'd be better at taking an extra moment's worth of rejection from each other about a bad joke. Because that's all Wood and I are - a bad joke.

"Hey Pens," I said, finally walking into the front half of the library to sit next to her.

Penny glanced up at me before burying her head back into a book. And she wonders why people think she's a Ravenclaw, I thought sarcastically to myself. I sat down next to her, knowing better than to give up. If Penny was mad at me, then Susan was mad at me, meaning Willow is stuck bordering and I'm not pushy enough to make her choose, and Siren hates it when people fight anyway.

"So, whatchya reading?" Penny showed me the spine of her book before stonily replacing it in her lap.

I sighed, ready to scream at her that she had to try and work it out too before I heard a nondescript, "PSST!" I looked around, my brow furrowed, "PSST!"

I spotted Wood behind the bookshelf which separated the front section from one of the mini-study rooms. He looked like a fool, madly waving his arms at me, obviously to come join him. Oh no, I'm in this fight because people have to think he and I are having sex - I am not joining him behind a bookshelf in the library, thank you very much.

I shook my head at him, mouthing 'no' and turning back to Penny. In the midst of desperately trying to think of something to say to her, I heard a book fall to the floor. My head snapped in that direction, and I saw a sign written in disgustingly pompous handwriting, Do you want help or not?!

Wood's eyes peeked at me before he disappeared behind the bookshelf again. I rolled my eyes, I do not need his help. In fact, the last thing I need is his help.

"Ah, Miss Darling, I believe you're here for your detention," Wood questioned, walking up after an hour of torturing-silence later, which is the equivalent of about a minute in the real world.

"Detention?" Oh come ON, Wood, you can't be thinking flying NOW!

"Yes, detention, for speaking so many times out of line today in class," he said.

My brow furrowed, "You only dared to give me a detention, you never gave me on-"

"I've decided that you will be helping Madame Prince to organize this section of the library." Wood grabbed my arm and pulled me up, "This one, over here, behind this bookshelf. You know this one, it's authors Bw to Chr-"

I pulled my arm out from Wood's grasp as he dragged me behind the bookshelf, "What do you think you're doing?"

I'd started to whisper so we wouldn't draw attention, and Wood followed suit, "Quite honestly, Darling, you're drowning in there!"

"You don't even know what I'm trying to do!"

"You made some idiotic mistake that your friend blew out of proportion and now you're trying to make up for it?"

My eyes narrowed suspiciously, "How do you know about that?"

"Lucky guess, now do you want my help or not?"

I bit my lip, glancing between Penny and Wood. Penny and I had never been very close, so I wasn't quite sure how to handle her anger as well as I could Susan's or Willow's. "What makes you think you're so good at this anyway?"

"Experience."

I arched an eyebrow at him, "You expect me to trust that? That's the most shady answer you've ever given me."

"I'm a teacher, trust that I'm more experienced-" Oh God. "Now I'm telling you, just completely and totally throw yourself at her feet."

"No way," I exclaimed, almost forgetting to whisper. I had never had to go to those extremes with Willow or Susan, and I don't even like Penny that much! I have my pride - this we all know.

"It's not as bad as it sounds, just... ask for her help with something. Sound like you need her."

"But I don't need her."

"Doesn't matter! She wouldn't want the truth if she knew what it was."

"That's the most un-teacher-like thing I've ever heard come out of a teacher's mouth," I told him honestly. Because that's what people are supposed to be, HONEST! "I can't put a hundred percent into the apology."

"You can, and you're going to have to, now get out of here and go save your social life!"

"You're being so weird," I grimaced at him. And really, he is. Since when does any professor, let alone Wood, offer up social advice.

"I'm very involved in the school, now go make friends!"

He pushed me out from behind the bookcase, prompting me to bash into the edge of another one behind me. I smiled lopsidedly at the librarian as she glared at me, "I'll just... sit down, then."

Madame Prince's eyes followed me to my seat next to Penny, where the red-head regarded me stonily, "Well, aren't you just so quick at organizing."

I sighed, glancing between my brown-eyed stalker and Penny, trying to decide which path to take - mine, or Wood's. If he's wrong, you I could always rub it in his face later. "Well, I'm quick at a lot of things with Wood."

It wasn't quite throwing myself at her feet. I couldn't bring myself to go that far, but it was a start. It was a bit of a halfway mark, or something. Whatever the hell it was, it worked. Penny started to giggle, and would converse with me openly. The delicate dynamic of my group of friends was saved, and Siren could breathe freely.

I won't admit that it's all because of Wood's advice, though. Oh no, he's too stupid for that.

Experience my ass.

God this weekend is going to suck.