Chapter Ten
Grandma and I invited Rose's entire family to our house for New Year's Eve, a holiday which most wizarding families did not celebrate. Charlie wasn't able to make it, as he was already back in Romania, working with the dragons. Audrey came, but Percy had a report he had to get ready for the Minister for Magic, Kingsley Shacklebolt, so he didn't come. Other than that, everybody else from Christmas came. Rose, Hugo and their parents marched up the street like Muggles and knocked on our door -- Hermione said that they didn't want to 'intrude on our privacy.' They had arrived early, so they helped Grandma and I decorate the house without using magic, because the Ministry of Magic would think that I had used magic, even though I was underage. By the time the Potters knocked on our door, following Rose's mother's example, we had most of the colorful streamers up, and Rose, Hugo and I were purple in the face from the effort of blowing up so many balloons.
Everybody else arrived like Muggles, too, or else by the Floo Network -- Apparition or Portkeys would get me in trouble.
Finally, everybody was there, and we started the party. I led the countdown to the New Year, and then everybody went home. It wasn't nearly as eventful as Christmas (we couldn't play Quidditch in the backyard due to nosy neighbours), but everybody had a lot of fun.
On January 3, Grandma drove me to King's Cross so that I could return to Hogwarts. I thanked Carla and Annie for the presents they had sent me, and they thanked me likewise. Then we got on the train and played 'Exploding Snap' again, talking and laughing the entire time.
I had missed the delicious food from Hogwarts. After we had finished supper, Rose asked if we wanted to see something. Carla and Annie claimed that they were tired, and headed back to the common room, but I went with Rose. She led me down a small set of stone stairs across the Entrance Hall and into a long, straight corridor. Torches hung in brackets on the wall, and Hufflepuffs kept squeezing past us and venturing down the long hallway to give a password to a portrait of a fat man at the end of the corridor. Rose, however, stopped long before the entrance to the Hufflepuffs' common room, in front of an unmoving painting. She looked both ways down the corridor, then tickled the painted pear, which giggled and allowed the portrait to swing forwards. Then she stepped forwards into the gloom beyond the painting. I stared after her until the dark swallowed her up.
Rose's voice hissed out of the dark. "Elle! Come on!"
Uncertainly, I stepped through the hole left by the painting, blinking rapidly so that my eyes could adjust to the dark. Just as I grew used to the new lighting and was able to see Rose ten feet ahead of me, waiting, the portrait of the fruit bowl swung shut and everything went black.
"Come on!" whispered Rose.
"I can't see anything!" I hissed.
"We aren't at home anymore, silly!" she said quietly. "Light your wand! Lumos!" she whispered as an afterthought, and a point of white light appeared five feet in front of me.
I could have kicked myself. Why didn't I think of that? "Lumos!" I muttered, and the tip of my wand lit like a candle, lighting two feet around me in all directions. I went quickly to Rose and she led me the rest of the way. I discovered that we were in a wide corridor. There were torches on these walls, too, but they were not lit.
"Nox!" Rose's light went out.
"What did you do that for?" I whispered furiously, keeping mine lit.
"Trust me," said Rose's voice out of the dark. "Just put your light off."
"Are you crazy?" I said.
"Just do it," said Rose impatiently.
"Fine. Nox!" And the darkness surrounded us again.
"We're almost there," promised Rose. "Just a little bit further..."
And a moment later, we emerged into a large, brightly lit room with a high ceiling and four long tables, with another one at the top of the room. The layout was exactly like the Great Hall.
"What is this place?" I asked. My voice echoed.
"It's the kitchens, silly," explained Rose.
"Can Hally get Miss and Miss anything?" squeaked a voice from my waist, and I looked down, startled, to see a little thing with big ears and round eyes, staring up at me, wearing a tea towel tied around its body like a dress.
"No, thank you, Hally," said Rose politely, and the thing ran off.
"What was that?"
"A house-elf," said Rose promptly. "Her name is Hally, she's assigned to our dormitory. The house-elves clean Hogwarts and cook our food. They put it on these tables, and when McGonagall says so, the food gets sent up to the Great Hall -- which is directly above the kitchens. Each house-elf is assigned to a place for them to clean -- one to every dormitory, like Hally is for ours, and Cannon is for Ayla's. Then two or three are assigned to each common room, and a few to each classroom. There's one to every teacher's office, and then some for the bathrooms. The rest just roam around, cleaning anything that Filch misses."
"Wow," I said, trying to think of how many house-elves would be needed to clean all of Hogwarts. I wondered why we hardly ever saw them. Even now, I couldn't see many. "Where are they now, do you think?" I asked.
"Well, their day's work is over if they are assigned to a dormitory, because they do those while everybody's in class, so those one's are probably in bed, resting," she said, pointing to a number of tiny little doors along two walls. There was more than one level of house-elf rooms, like an apartment. There were little bits of walkway, with stairs leading up to them, at each level, so that the house-elves could reach their houses easily. "Each room is really small, about as big around as our beds. Each house-elf has some blankets and stuff to sleep on, and sometimes a few possessions, depending. No clothes, though -- if their master gives a house-elf clothes, they've been freed. And these house-elves have lots of masters -- teachers, students... The ones that are cleaning other places are probably there already -- bathrooms, classrooms. Common rooms get done while we're asleep."
I stood there, staring in awe, for several minutes. Finally, Rose tugged on my sleeve.
"Elle..."
"Mmmm?" I looked at her, still amazed by the kitchens. House-elves bustled around, happily cleaning.
"It's almost curfew," she informed me. "We have to get back to the common room."
We ran down corridors and up winding staircases until we reached the entrance to Ravenclaw Tower.
"Caput Draconis," panted Rose, and the door swung open. We stumbled into the common room just in time.
"Where have you guys been?" hissed Carla when we sat down, without even looking up from her parchment.
"Kitchens," replied Rose.
"Well, you'd better get started on your homework!" she told us. "Annie's already finished, she went up to bed a while ago." She finished her Potions essay a moment later. Rolling up the parchment, she screwed the cap onto her ink bottle and stood up. "Hurry up, guys! Classes start again tomorrow. You'll want to get some sleep." And with that, she disappeared towards the girls' dormitories.
***
The next morning, there was a notice in the common room.
"The first Quidditch match on Saturday!" whispered Rose excitedly on the way down to breakfast. "Gryffindor against Hufflepuff. James is Seeker for Gryffindor, you know."
The week passed quickly. On Saturday morning, we followed the rest of the crowd down to the Quidditch pitch. We cheered loudly when Gryffindor scored first.
"Steven Landon of Gryffindor takes the Quaffle!" cried a voice.
"That's Sam Jordan," Rose told me. "He's my cousin Fred's best mate. He almost always announces the Quidditch games."
"But Kylie Steele of Hufflepuff has taken it from him!" yelled Sam. "She flies towards Gryffindor's hoops... Can Korde save it?" There was a pause. "And she's saved it!" Sam shouted as a great cheer arose from the spectators wearing red and gold. "But what's going on? Looks like Potter's seen the Snitch!"
I looked around, trying to spot James. He was in a steep dive towards the ground, his body pressed flat to his broom, a red-and-gold streak in the air. As he got closer to the ground, he reached out his right hand towards a golden blur of movement; the Snitch hovering five centimeters off the grass. Turning the broom up at the last moment, he grabbed the Snitch and flew up again, straight past Hufflepuff's disappointed Seeker. There was a roar of approval from the Gryffindors, and the game was over as quickly as it had begun.
***
Over the next month or so, I grew closer to Rose, while the two of us sort of drifted away from Annie and Carla. During flying lessons, I talked to Carla, because Rose wasn't there, but other than that, I barely spoke to Annie and Carla. The material we learned in all of our classes became harder. The teachers were constantly on our case about 'exams are coming' and 'study hard for your exams' and blah, blah, blah. Rose and I became inseparable. Once or twice a week, we went down to the kitchens to say hello to the house-elves. Sometimes we simply wandered the halls, trying to see if we could find anywhere we hadn't been yet (we found four empty classrooms and two boys' washrooms over the course of two weeks). On days that we didn't go exploring, we went to the library and did homework. Otherwise, we would do our homework in the common room, after curfew. Carla and Annie sat across the table from us at mealtimes, but they didn't talk to us much. There was the occasional "Hi, how are you?" and "So did you finish the Charms essay?" but other than that, nothing. Zip. Zero. Zilch.
Exams approached too quickly. It was March, then I blinked, and suddenly it was June, and my first exam was in two days.
It was Saturday -- sunny, as usual for summer -- but Rose and I weren't having fun like the rest of the students. We sat under a tree by the lake, leaning over our books and quizzing each other on what we had learned throughout the year.
I looked up when I heard footsteps. A large group of people was headed towards us.
"Mind if we study with you?" asked Al, and Rose just shrugged.
"Sure, have a seat," I said, then turned back to Magical Drafts and Potions.
I guess I didn't realize just how many people were there, because a moment later, what sounded like a million different voices started up, quizzing each other on the properties of plants, the ingredients of potions, the wand movements for this spell and for that spell. I looked up from my book very slowly and looked around at the large group of people. Al, Scorpius, Lizzie, Marie, Emily, Carla, Annie. Even some of the Gryffindor first-year girls that disliked us for 'intruding into their dormitory' after the break-in last fall, Ivonette Randall and Jana Neptune, were there, as well as a bunch of boys from our year -- all five of the Ravenclaw first-year boys, and a couple of Gryffindor first-year boys as well, other than Al and Scorpius, of course.
"Study group?" asked a voice. I looked up, squinting into the bright sunlight, to see James grinning at me.
"Yeah, I guess so," I replied. "Want to join?"
"Might as well. Nothing better to do, anyways," he said, and sat down beside me. "Want any help?"
"Don't you need to study?"
"I'll help you if you help me," he promised, pulling his books out of his bag and handing one to me, taking Magical Drafts and Potions out of my hand at the same time. "You ask me a question out of my book, then I'll ask you one from yours."
I flipped through the pages of The Standard Book of Spells, Grade 2. "Er... What is the incantation and wand movement to make inanimate objects fly?"
"Wingardium Leviosa, and it's a swish," he said. "Why are you in the Grade 1 Review section?"
***
Author's Note: All right, so on this rare occasion when I have absolutely nothing to say except that my brother is a git (which is always, ALWAYS true), then I will simply say: Thank you to those who reviewed last chapter -- HPobsessssssed7 and Chelsea2013. I love you guys! And thank you to girllyingbythesea901 for adding Mudblood to your favourite stories! Okay, and with that done, I am going to go and begin Chapter 11, and my brother is a git. =D