Tutoring sessions with Cedric made everything go so much quicker and it meant she was beginning to understand lessons. This is in turn made the work easier but everything just went quicker all of a sudden and two months had gone by.

Draco had been visibly shocked when he turned up to the library and there was a fourth year sat with her. In fact he walked into the little corner of the library the first years had unofficially claimed as their own, saw the two at a table, and walked right back out. Ernie had run after him to explain, and got told off by Madame Pince in the process.

When Lizzie had seen Draco afterwards, he was ashamed at his behaviour more than anything. This shocked Lizzie somewhat as she'd been sure that if anyone was to judge her it would be Draco. Instead he'd said that if there was anything he could do, she should just tell him.

Halloween came about before she knew it.

Lizzie had even forgotten that Halloween was coming up, but when the girls woke up on Halloween morning the smell of pumpkin had entered their dormitory.

"What's that smell?" Hannah had asked, acting as their alarm that morning (something which had become a habit since she woke up at a set time every morning).

Susan and Lizzie took a minute to wake up, as they did every morning when Hannah shouted them awake.

"What smell?" Lizzie was not good at functioning in the mornings.

"Wake up, Lizzie," Hannah threw a pillow at her, something else that happened every morning.

The pillow hit her and she jolted up, "I'm awake!"

"Now what's that smell?" Hannah repeated her question.

"Why does it smell of pumpkin?" Susan had woken up enough to talk.

"Pumpkin!" Hannah exclaimed.

"Yes, that's what I said," Lizzie could practically hear the eye roll in Susan's voice. "Why does it smell of pumpkin?"

"Halloween," Hannah said, pulling herself out of bed and walking over to the bathroom.

"It's nearly November?" Lizzie couldn't quite believe it.

"Lizzie, you write the date on each piece of work you do," Susan said, beginning to climb out of her own bed. "And get up."

Lizzie threw her arm over her face, "but bed."

"Susan, chuck another pillow at her," Hannah shouted from the bathroom.

Knowing full well that Susan had fantastic aim and would throw every pillow in her possession at her, Lizzie rolled onto her front and pushed herself up. "I'm moving."

"Anyway," Susan said, rather loudly in Lizzie's opinion but she supposed Hannah was in the bathroom, "why does it smell of pumpkin, even if it is Halloween?"

Lizzie had finally managed to sit up, "it's a Halloweeny thing though isn't it?"

"I guess, but why can we smell it?"

"We're right by the kitchens," Lizzie had finally managed to stand up and move over to find her clothes and get her uniform out.

"We are?"

"Yeah, the entrance is right by the barrels."

"How do you know that?"

"Hogwarts: A History."

"Oh right then," Susan seemed impressed by that.

A comfortable silence descended over the three girls as Hannah came out of the bathroom and they each began to pull on their school uniform and pack their bags for the lessons that day. Once they'd all got ready they collected the boys from the common room and went for breakfast before lessons started.

Charms meant the beginning of something they'd all been looking forward to: making objects fly. The week before or so, Professor Flitwick had levitated Neville's toad around the room and Ernie hadn't shut up about the fact that they would obviously be doing it soon because Flitwick had demonstrated it.

They were put into pairs: Hannah and Zacharias (something Lizzie was sure Hannah adored at that moment in time); Justin and Ernie; Lizzie and Susan. Susan was lovely to work with, and if Lizzie ever struggled she was good at breaking it down and talking her through stuff.

"Now, don't forget that nice wrist movement we've been practising!" Professor Flitwick squeaked at that, whilst perched on his pile of books so he could be seen. "Swish and flick, remember, swish and flick. And saying the magic words properly is very important, too – never forget Wizard Baruffio, who said 's' instead of 'f' and found himself on the floor with a buffalo on his chest."

The spell was difficult to get to grips with, but the entire class was struggling so it didn't make Lizzie feel too bad. One of the Gryffindor boys even set the feather they were practising with on fire, Harry Potter had had to put it out with his hat.

In fact, nobody in the class had actually managed to get the charm to work, although Susan's feather jumped slightly at one point. Or that was, nobody managed to get the charm to work until Flitwick cried out, "oh, well done! Everyone see here, Miss Granger's done it!"

They all got set homework to practise the charm for next lesson. Lizzie just hoped she'd be able to get it by then.

The rest of the day passed fairly quickly with everyone excited for the Halloween feast that evening. Obviously the first years didn't know much about it, but according to some of the older students it was always quite extravagant.

As it turned out the decorations were amazing, thousands (it seemed) of live bats fluttered from the walls and the ceilings, as well as swooping over the tables and making the candles in the pumpkins flicker but staying lit. Zacharias was convinced they were kept alight by magic.

The first years eagerly tucked into the feast when it appeared on the table, it was incredible. Unfortunately they didn't get much of a chance to eat because Professor Quirrell, the defence against the dark arts teacher, sprinted into the hall. His turban was askew and there was a look of sheer terror on his face. The hall quieted, student by student as more and more people noticed him.

By the time he reached the top table, where Professor Dumbledore was sat, everybody was quiet and could clearly hear his words of "troll – in the dungeons – thought you ought to know" before he fainted.

It was like an explosion went off, screaming and shouting filled the hall, and it took several purple firecrackers shooting from the end of Dumbledore's wand to shut everybody up.

"Prefects, lead your houses back to the dormitories immediately!" he instructed.

Daisy called down the table, "first years, this way! Just like the start of term feast."

Everyone gathered around her and she did a quick head count before they began to walk to the entrance of the Great Hall.

"Keep behind me now, nobody go running off!" Daisy kept reminding them all.

"How could a troll get in? Aren't they completely idiotic?" Zacharias' voice obnoxiously called out, reminding Lizzie too much off the start of term feast.

"Completely," Cedric had come up behind them. "Hey," he said to Lizzie, "you okay?"

"Bit freaked out, but pretty good," she replied.

"Ernie," Cedric nodded at the boy he'd replaced as Lizzie's tutor.

"Cedric," Ernie nodded back, a tad stiffly and Lizzie frowned at him. She wasn't quite sure why he was being so offish with Cedric.

"But then how could a troll get in?" Zacharias had decided to join the conversation.

"No idea," Cedric and Ernie said together, before glancing at each other and grinning.

'That was more like it', Lizzie thought.

The big group of Hufflepuffs finally made it out of the Great Hall and into the entrance hall, where some Slytherins were making their way down the stairs to the dungeons. Lizzie saw Draco in the group, and he looked in her general direction but she wasn't sure whether he actually saw her.

"Are they going to be okay going down to the dungeons?" Lizzie asked, finally taking her eyes off of the group. "Isn't that where Quirrell said the troll was?"

"Dumbledore wouldn't have let them go down if he thought there was a risk to them," Ernie reassured her, seeming to guess why she was so worried about it. He took her hand and gave it a squeeze, "they'll be fine, Lizzie."

Lizzie nodded, looking back at the stairs towards the dungeons.

"Reckon there'll be food in the common room? We didn't exactly get to eat much of the feast," Justin asked, worry seeping into his voice.

Their little group laughed, the sheer light-heartedness of that compared to what they had just been talking about making them all forget the panic going on around them.

As it turned out food was sent to them all in their common room, and so Justin's fears were calmed.

After eating her fill of the feast, Lizzie went to her dormitory to try and get an early night. The whole panic of the troll had worn her out somewhat, although Professor Sprout did drop in to reassure them that the troll had been found and subdued in a girls' bathroom. Apparently the bathroom had been somewhat wrecked by the troll and would therefore be out of order until it could be rebuilt.

She had just got into the room and was halfway to her bed when a giant crack sounded out in the silence, making her jump and nearly fall into one of the posts around Hannah's bed.

Clutching her hand to her chest, Lizzie turned towards the source of the noise and was only half surprised to see a house elf standing in the middle of the room. She had recognised the sound as the one Minky would make when she disappeared and reappeared, on the rare occasions that she didn't run about the house.

"Who are you?" she asked, slowly beginning to calm down from her moment of terror.

"Dobby, miss, Dobby the house elf," the elf replied.

"Okay, hello Dobby, what can I do for you?"

"Mister Draco asked me to check that you were okay after the troll incident," he squeaked.

"Oh," touched that he'd sent his house elf to check on her, "thank you, Dobby, you can tell Draco that I'm fine."

"Yes, miss," Dobby bowed and, with another crack, disappeared out of the room.

Lizzie smiled and shook her head, flattered that Draco had been worried about her with the whole troll in the school issue. She walked back over to her bed, grabbing her pyjamas and heading for the bathroom. Except she didn't get there because another crack was heard and Dobby appeared directly in front of her.

"Jeez! Hi, Dobby, everything okay?"

"Yes, miss," the house elf squeaked, "Mister Draco wished me to deliver this letter to you, miss," he held out a folded piece of parchment to her.

She took the parchment from him, "thank you, Dobby, is there anything else?"

The house elf blushed, or that was the best word to describe whatever happened anyway, "miss is too kind to Dobby."

Lizzie smiled at him, "please, call me Lizzie."

"Miss Lizzie is too kind to Dobby."

"Is there anything I can do for you, Dobby?"

Dobby shook his head, his ears flapping as he did so, "no, miss Lizzie."

"Okay, well it was lovely to meet you."

"Thank you, miss Lizzie, goodbye."

"Goodbye, Dobby, and have a good evening."

"Thank you, miss," and he disappeared with another crack.

Lizzie stayed smiling at the spot where the house elf had been for a moment longer, before placing the letter from Draco on her bed and going into the bathroom to get changed.

After she had cleaned her teeth, changed, and washed her face, she walked back to her bed, leaning against the wall behind her pillows and unfolding the letter.

Elizabeth,

I just wanted to make sure you had made it back to your common room okay and unfortunately I can't quite get my owl from my common room so I had to send Dobby. I hope you didn't find him too irritating.

I've told Dobby that he should appear if you call for him and so he can act as a letter delivery service if necessary. I'm going to try and start owling you again so we can talk more but Dobby's probably the easiest solution for the evenings.

I'll try and find you tomorrow,

Draco

Lizzie smiled at the letter. She didn't particularly love the way he seemed to take advantage of Dobby, but she knew his parents probably weren't very kind to the house elf so he wouldn't know any different.

"Lizzie?" Susan and Hannah had come into the room.

"Hey," she replied, folding the letter up and putting it on her bedside table.

"What's that?" Hannah asked as Susan grabbed her pyjamas.

"What's what?" Susan said on her way to the bathroom.

"Draco sent me a letter," Lizzie explained, not really seeing the need to hide it from them.

"Saying what?" Hannah obviously just wanted to read it so Lizzie passed it over to her without another word.

"I'm reading it after!" came a call from the bathroom.

Hannah gave it back to Lizzie, "he's big on you guys talking more, do you not talk enough as it is?"

"Over the summer we'd send each other two or three letters a day. Now we only talk when we see each other, which is mostly out of class, so I can sort of see where he's coming from."

"He steals you a couple of times each weekend though, sometimes for hours on end."

"Hannah, your turn in the bathroom. Lizzie, pass me the letter," Susan barked out her orders as she returned and threw her school clothes. Hannah and Lizzie smirked at each other before doing as she had said.

"Who's Dobby?"

"Draco's house elf."

"Those are like, little servants, right?"

Lizzie laughed, "something like that, they're all really endearing though."

"Oh, awesome," Susan went back to reading the letter.

Lizzie got out of bed and tired her mess from the day up whilst the two girls were preoccupied. After Hannah had finished in the bathroom, and Susan had read the letter, she knew they would all discuss it.

Sure enough, once Hannah had come back out and chucked her stuff at the foot of her bed, all three girls convened on Lizzie's bed.

"Okay, so he's quite pretentious," Hannah began.

Susan laughed, "he's very intent of this idea of you owling."

"That's what I said," Hannah was obviously quite pleased with the agreement.

"I don't get why though," Lizzie said, honestly at a loss for the reason behind it, "I feel like we talk enough."

"Apparently stealing her every weekend isn't good enough," Hannah joked, although Lizzie felt like there might be some underlying seriousness to the comment.

"Lizzie?" Susan noticed how quiet she had gone.

"I'll talk to him about it all when he finds me tomorrow."

"And say what?" Susan's voice was filled with concern for her friend.

"I don't know," Lizzie ran her fingers through her hair, "maybe that I don't think we need to talk any more than we do."

"If you think that's best," Hannah said, getting up and moving over to her bed, "I'm going to get some sleep."

"You'll be fine, Lizzie," Susan gave her a hug and moved to her bed, "night you two."

"Yeah, night," Lizzie echoed, climbing under her duvet and laying back against her pillows. She wasn't sure why she felt so adverse to owling him again, but then they spoke a lot anyway and she didn't see the need to speak anymore. If it were the Christmas or summer holidays then she would understand. Plus, owling meant taking time to write responses, and she needed to focus on getting through her work. Tutoring had helped but she still needed to keep on top of everything. Maybe she'd just explain this all to him, and suggest they hang out once a week or something. Yes, that's what she would do, and with this decided, Lizzie quickly fell asleep.