Delilah was the last one out of bed that morning and she still felt exhausted. She had tossed and turned all night, occasionally waking up covered in sweat. As if that had not been enough, she had woken up flooded with a feeling of dread. She rolled out of bed and shuffled to the bathroom to assess the damage. Looking into the mirror, she almost frightened herself. Her hair was a giant mess, she had dark circles under her eyes, and her eyes were bloodshot. She shook her head at her reflection and hopped in the shower.

Man those shower heads really are magic, she thought seeing the improvement when she got out, even the dark circles were gone. She passed Sam on the way out, who was mumbling some sort of greeting on her way in. Delilah chuckled thinking that she would be back to human as soon as she was out of the shower. She finished getting ready and realized she was not yet ready to leave the dorm and face her fellow classmates.

She crawled into one of the window nooks in the dorm and shut the curtains around herself, shielding her from the outside world. She was not quite ready to deal with the staring or whispers yet. She grabbed a book off the shelf and hid in the nook, getting comfy. Shoot, she may even skip breakfast altogether so she didn't have to deal with any of it before class.

She had heard all the girls leave the dorm room but did not want to peek out. She was happy no one had disturbed her yet. Once it was all quiet again and she was sure everyone had headed down for breakfast, she dared a peek out. She didn't see anyone so she crawled out of her hiding space. She laid down on her bed and munched on a bit of candy. Gross a worm flavored jelly bean. Why in the world would they make these? Quickly she found a major flaw in her plan, she was starving and could not make it through to lunch without eating some real food. She should not have skipped dinner the night before.

Just then, a pretty peacock flew into the room and once it landed on her bed, it unfolded to reveal a note written in Lysander's handwriting.

Everyone is gone.

You don't have to hide up there.

I got you some food.

Once she read it, it folded back into a peacock, though this time it was stationary. She picked it up and set it on her nightstand. She knew that handwriting. She sneaked down to the common room and saw that it was indeed empty. Only once she was out in the open did she see Lorcan sitting in one of the nooks she couldn't see into at first. He was reading a book, a small plate of food sitting before him.

"I figured you would want to avoid the crowds, so I grabbed you a plate of food. Didn't want you to go hungry," he said without even looking up from his book. "Candy sure isn't going to do anything but make you sick."

She joined him in the nook and started eating the food he got for her, while he just continuing to read his book. When she was done, she turned to him and gave him a hug, only then did he put down his book. "Thank you, you don't really know how much that means to me. And nice haiku by the way. You said just the right magic words."

"Happy coincidence," he said with a smile that said he was lying. "I just imagined how I would feel in the situation and figured you were feeling the same. I waited for you to come down but when Sam told me you weren't leaving the dorm, I went with them down to the dining hall. I got some food for both of us and came back here to see if you would come down. I already ate mine and almost left to head to class. I thought you may have already went there, but decided I should try that nifty spell we just learned to see if you were up there. We should get going though, wouldn't want to be late to your first day of Defense would you? That wouldn't set too good of an impression."

She just shook her head and laughed, "Haven't had too great of a track record with any of the the teachers yet, might as well not add another one to that list."

They gathered their bags and headed to the Defense Against the Dark Arts class. Everyone was already in class, and everyone went quiet as soon as she walked in. Embarrassed, she quickly went to join the others at the table. She was between Sam and Lysander again, Lorcan on the other side of Sam creating a Scamander defense bubble.

Ly-There's no need to be embarrassed, they are just jealous. They all wish they could be half a awesome as you are.

She gave Lysander a thankful smile and grabbed her supplies out of her book as Professor Lovejoy came in the room, thankfully taking the spotlight off of her.

"Welcome First Years to Beginners Defense Against the Dark Arts. This may very well be the most important class you will ever be in, as it could be to only difference between living and dying. I say this not to scare you, but to put into perspective the importance of this class and why you should take this class very seriously. Now today we will be going over the fundamentals of defense. If you would please take out your book and follow along with me."

This was not like History of Magic where Miss Klootz would just read from the book. Lovegood explained the basics of defense (Protect yourself, stay calm, and only attack when necessary) with such flair you couldn't help but be sucked into his lectures.

"Alright, now that we got that out of the way, I will be showing you all how to handle Imps, the nasty little buggers," he said as he pulled out a small birdcage full of little wingless fairies. "Though rather harmless, they can be a pest and can infest your house if not properly disposed of. There are three ways to get rid of them."

Before he could go over the options, the Imps had started throwing bits of paper they had ripped off his desk at him and the students in the front row.

Ly- For such little creatures, they sure do have quite the arms on them. I bet you're glad we weren't in the front seat now huh?

Sam just laughed as she continued to take notes on what Professor Lovejoy was saying. He was now going over the ways to get rid of the Imps.

D- Imps like to throw things

Give them a bit of karma

Beat em and boot em

Let the Gnomes deal with them

Ly- The only good thing about gnomes

Then beat and boot em too

Delilah chuckled at what Lysander had added to her notes and shook her head.

Ly- I like the way you take notes. Quite humorous but to the point.

D- I noticed it helps me retain it. I find it funny so my mind holds onto it better because it now has feeling attached to it.

Ly- Intriguing. I may have to give your idea a try. Any other study tips you may have?

D- Yeah, actually paying attention to class usually helps.

Getting the hint, Lysander went back to focusing on the class and taking notes. Part way through the lecture, the Imps found out how to escape and hid all over the classroom, occasionally throwing things at the students from the tops of shelves. It had taken the whole second part of class to find them all and put them back. They only had a few minutes left of class at this point so Lovejoy excused the students for lunch.

After lunch, they figured they would not need their telescopes until later tonight, and they already had their books, so they skipped the trip back to the dorms. The four of them headed up the tallest tower to the astrology classroom which was one floor below the observatory. The classroom was large and had individual desks circling the center of the classroom that just had a barstool and small tall table. There were no windows and the ceiling had been charmed to mimic the night sky, the only source of light was now coming from an overly enlarged moon that was almost full. It was still rather bright in there and the four of them had no issues making it through the classroom.

The four of them settled with four seats in a parallelogram formation in the outer ring of the class, otherwise they would have been spread too far apart. Delilah surprisingly chose one of the back seats.

"Wow, look at you, you rebel without a cause," Lysander said giving her an approving smile before taking the seat next to her. "Sitting where the cool kids do."

"I only want this spot because it's obvious we are going to have to be looking at the ceiling and I would prefer to not have to break my neck to do so," she said, a bit of sass present in her tone. "It's not like I want to sit by you, it's just the logical choice."

"Oh you wound me!" Lysander said pretending to have been stabbed in the chest. "I don't think I'll survive this one. Here I thought maybe we were friends and then you go and stab me in the heart. Shame on you!"

"My goodness, drama queen much?" Sam said from the seat in front of her.

"Double attack! Whatever did I do to deserve such betrayal?" he said, now acting like he was dying in his seat. They were saved from any further horrible acting by the Professor entering the classroom.

She walked in dressed like a hippy wearing a long flowy dress and long grey hair that hung in a loose braid down to her thighs. She had more rings than fingers and a stack of various bracelets on both wrists. Around her neck, she wore glasses hanging on a beaded chain and a single long leather cord with a wire wrapped white crystal hanging at the bottom, it seemed to be glowing a bit. She still looked young and vibrant, but her hair gave away the fact that she was much older than she looked.

She seemed to float as she made her way to the center of the room, an air of grace and fluidity present in her every step. The only sign that she was walking was the faint jingle of what must have been one of those belly dancer anklets. She was barefoot so other than the soft jingle of her anklet, you could not hear her steps, every step as light as air. She sat down on the seat and instantly had everyone's attention without even having to make a sound. She set her wand, a small stack of papers, and a glass of water onto the small table next to her.

She must have thought it too bright in the room because she picked up her wand, pointed it up to the moon, and pushed her wand towards the ceiling. The moon shrunk to half its size allowing for more stars to be seen and for the room to dim just enough that everyone could still see. She set her wand down and took a sip of her water before speaking. Her voice was soft and low with a bit of a rasp to it, but somehow it managed to reach even Delilah in the far row.

"Welcome, welcome. I am so very pleased to welcome you all to first year Astronomy. My name is Iris Marici and I will be your instructor for this course. You may call me Iris, or Miss Marici if you would prefer to be formal. I am not a professor, just a divine reader of all sorts, but for this course we shall stick to the stars. These here are your star charts. You will need them for lessons so please make sure to bring them to every class. Please grab your quills and ink and we shall begin our lesson."

She had picked up her wand again, this time a stack of large scrolls floated through the air, dispersing to all of the students. Each scroll had a star patterned ribbon tying them closed. Delilah unrolled hers to find that there were many charts in there, all of which were fairly blank other than a single star, the north star she presumed. It looked like they were going to have to fill them all out, their only guide being the stars themselves.

"First we will learn to locate the planets of our universe and track their movements, so if you could please open your scrolls and prepare to document the locations of the planets as I show you them on the ceiling."

She used movements of her wand to enlarge, shrink, and move what was being projected on the ceiling to show them the locations. When she twisted her wand like a dial, the stars would move across the ceiling as if someone had fast forwarded and rewound the sky, allowing the students to track the planets' trajectories. It took all period but by time they were excused for dinner, they had mapped out all of the planets and their paths. When they returned that night after dinner and their long break, they would be finding the planets in the real nights sky through their telescopes.

Since it was a lovely evening, the four of them decided to hang out on the grounds after dinner. They had already gathered their telescopes and were now hanging out under a large tree. The leaves had started to fall and the ground was covered with them so they all started to gather them up into big piles. As soon as the pile was big enough to hide them all, Lysander picked up Delilah and threw her in.

She screamed as she was tossed in and struggled to try to make it out. Before she could even peek out, Sam screamed, having being thrown in right next to her by Lorcan. A few thumps later and the boys had jumped in themselves. As she was trying to crawl out, a pair of hands pulled her right back in. As she finally escaped, hair and clothes full of leaves, she plopped down on the now leafless ground and caught her breath. The other three followed not long after and they all just laughed as the girls threw leaves at the boys.

"Now look at us! We look like we got swept up in a tornado!" Sam shouted as she threw another handful of crunchy leaves at the boys, laughing despite her annoyance. She started picking all the leaves off of her as she turned to the boys saying, "I swear you guys are a pain in my butt. Quite literally too seeing as how I landed on my butt in there."

They laughed as they all cleared themselves of leaves and got ready to head back to Astronomy. It was starting to get dark and class would be starting soon, so they gathered up their stuff and headed inside. Once inside, they dropped their bags in the classroom, grabbing their charts they had just filled out and their telescope before heading up the stairs to the observatory. It really was quite amazing up there now that the sun had gone down. The stars and moon shined brightly through the glass dome ceiling, illuminating the whole room.

They all began setting up their telescopes as the rest of the students filed in. Delilah was having issues getting her tripod to unfold so after Lorcan set up his he came over to help her set up hers.

"Wow, I like your telescope. It's very pretty, and I see it matches your wand. Very nice," he said struggling a bit to unfold one of the tripod legs. "there ya go, should be easier to set up now that the legs are loosened a bit. If they start to collapse on you, just tighten these dials here."

"Thanks Lorcan," she said with a smile. "You're the best."

He smiled and blushed a bit as he grabbed cushions for them all from the cabinet and returned to his telescope, peeking into it to look at the stars. Delilah did the same and as she searched the sky, she saw a shooting star.

"Wow did you see that?" she asked trying to look for more. "I just saw a shooting star!"

"Don't forget to make a wish!" Lysander said giving her a wink, still struggling to set up his telescope. "And you don't have to wish for a devilishly handsome hunk cause I'm right here!"

"Oh geeze, if your head was any bigger it wouldn't fit in the room," Sam said as she playfully hit him in the arm. "Alright Casanova, you got that handled or do you need some help. Too?

Together they got his telescope set up just in time before Miss Marici walked into the room. She didn't have anything with her but her wand. She did not need charts to find any star and would be spending her time helping students find what they needed to find, so she would not need her own telescope. Eventually they all found the planets they were looking for, most needing a bit of help from Miss Marici. Class ended just before eleven and they were all sluggishly gathering their supplies.

"You may all leave your telescopes here in the closet marked 'First Years' that way you will not have to tote it to and from class each week. Now before you return next week I would like a foot long essay describing the locations of each of the planets and their movements. You'll need your charts to do your work so make sure to bring them with you. I hope you enjoyed your first week of class and I also hope you enjoy your weekend. Thank you all, class dismissed,"

Delilah was so exhausted by the time they reached the common room, she said goodnight quickly and headed straight to the dorms. She emptied her bag since she wouldn't need it all weekend and grabbed her wand to put it away. Opening the drawer in her nightstand, she saw the letters in there that she had not read yet. It was too late and she was much too brain dead to get to them, so she shut her drawer and crawled into bed, shutting her curtains tight. She definitely did not want to be up with the sun tomorrow.