Adventures At Echowick

Disclaimer: I do not own Harry Potter or any related franchises. The one and only J.K. Rowling holds the rights to it, as well as all of the extensions to her wonderful world.

Trouble

Before Cari really knew what was happening, August had passed and September was half-gone. Sadly, the professors had not been exaggerating when they had warned of the increased work load, and most of the second-years were feeling the pressure.

The Whisper Plants had been grown with only one major incident. Timothy, a boy from the Physical Wing, had been working with his plant one afternoon when his headphones had malfunctioned. In the sudden lack of sound, the Nepenthes Insusurro had quickly influenced his mind. Timothy was willingly beginning to feed the plant his own hand when Professor Tallet had seen the situation and tackled him. The nearly-grown plant's mental control had been so strong that she had to physically wrestle Timothy out of the greenhouse's side door before his head could clear.

That had been the day Professor Tallet had decided to play music through the greenhouse and not just in the headphones. The idea was that the secondary layer of music would act as a safety net and hopefully lessen the impact of the Nepenthes Insusurro's psychic powers. Fortunately, there were no more incidents to test the theory. The plants had grown and had been transported to a lab where wizards were waiting to make use of their medicinal properties. Apparently, the plants were useful in treating digestive problems, though there was a black market for them as a properly prepared drought could allow a wizard to gain the powers to influence others.

Cari's other classes were trending toward a lot of book work, note taking, and quizzes. Even Survival, a mostly hands-on class, was filled with copying from the board at the front of the room, taking notes on first aid, fire-building, how to make a shelter in an emergency, and so on. It was still somewhat interesting, but Cari longed for something hands-on, something she could actually do rather than just learn about. Her Broomsmith classes came close to filling the need, but even then, she was mostly focusing on flight history and the mechanics of flight spells.

Though she tried not to feel like a martyr, Cari privately believed that she might have it worse than her classmates where workload was concerned. Professor Fleet had scheduled the flight class for the first weekend in September and it had taken up almost every second of Cari's Saturday. It had been a major success, and even with Fleet, Cari, and Professor Gregory all working to teach students, there were still some who had been unable to get the individual help that they needed. Cari's friends had come, but since they didn't need help, all she could do was wave wistfully at the across the field. At dinner that night, Professor Fleet had praised everyone who came to the lessons and had announced that there would be a second class in the spring, this one focusing on the rules of Quidditch to prepare any aspiring players for the summer tryouts. The next day, Cari spent polishing every Echowick broom. There had been so many students at the flight classes that every one had been used at least twice.

On top of all of this, Charms was worse than it had ever been. This year – perhaps after being chastised for his outbursts the year before – Garbin was forever assigning essays. If a student spoke without permission in class, they were given an essay on interrupting. If a student didn't know the right answer, they were assigned an essay on the topic. If a student didn't complete their essay from the day before, they were given two more. It didn't help matters that the 'student' in question was, more often than not, Cari herself. To add to the insult, Garbin never read the essays. He would look them over, scanning through to make sure it was complete, and then he would use a charm to heatlessly burn the pages.

As hard as she tried, Cari could never manage to lie low enough to avoid attracting the professor's attention. In mid-September, she found herself standing next to her desk as Professor Garbin lectured her about disrupting the class. She would have liked nothing more than to defend herself by reminding him that all she had done was sneeze, but knew from past experience that it wouldn't help anything. Claims that his judgment was skewed always managed to put Professor Garbin into an even worse than usual mood.

"Yet again, Miss Romana, I am forced to assign you an essay. This one, also due tomorrow, will be three pages on the topic of disrupting one's classmates and the injustice of depriving them of educational opportunities. I hope that will help remind you of proper classroom decorum. Sit down." Garbin sat as he had told her to, smoothing his robes self-importantly. Cari did as well, easing carefully into her seat to avoid any unnecessary noises that might be considered additional distractions.

As she looked over to smile exasperatedly at Lydia, Cari caught sight of Lionel, looking as though he was going to say something rash. He made eye contact with her and she shook her head warningly. He stared back insistently, but she continued the discouraging gesture. That's all I need, to get him in trouble, too. He barely got away with standing up to Garbin last year. Now that we're friends, Garbin will send us all to see Fleet.

Lionel was now ignoring her completely, and Cari could see from his posture that he was on the verge of standing up. Frantically, she shot a look to Kimber, who was sitting at the desk directly behind Lionel. To her credit, it didn't take Kimber long to figure out exactly what was going on. Her gaze flicked from Cari to Lionel to the now-lecturing Professor Garbin and half a second later her hand shot out. Smoothly, she grabbed a fistful of the material of Lionel's robes, gathering the material at the back of his neck and holding it firmly.

Already starting to rise, Lionel's neck hit the tautened material. He gagged loudly and sat back down, having essentially been clotheslined by his own robes. Professor Garbin whipped around, torn from writing notes on the board, and studied the students from the front of the room. Fortunately, he didn't see Kimber, still holding Lionel down by the robes. Unfortunately, his gaze rested on Cari. "Romana!" he bellowed. "Making noise again? Does your disrespect know no bounds?"

He stood panting as Willa slowly lifted a hand. "Yes, Miss Fredericks?"

Willa delicately cleared her throat. "I beg your pardon, sir, but I made the noise."

Garbin stared at the girl. Cari could practically see the gears turning inside of his head. The sound had obviously been of a gagging male. The idea of that sound coming from someone who looked like Willa was laughable. Disbelievingly, he asked, "You?"

"Yes, sir," Willa said, lowering her gaze regretfully. "I've had a truly terrible cold lately and I can't seem to shake it. The coughing is grotesque and I apologize for disrupting the class with the sound."

Professor Garbin could only gaze at her, obviously not believing the audacious story. However, she stared up at him with guileless blue eyes, no hint of a lie on her face. He shook his head and sighed. "Just don't let it happen again, Miss Fredericks."

"No, sir," she murmured contritely, then snuck a wink at Cari, who smiled back. Lionel looked utterly furious with all of them.

As Cari was leaving the Charms classroom, Lionel caught up with her, muttering, "I need a word." He grasped her elbow and towed her behind the nearest corner. "What was all of that about?" he fumed. "It was only going to take three seconds to put him in his place and then you wouldn't have had another essay to write! Why did you stop me?"

Even as she was pulling her arm up and out of his grip, Cari smiled. "And how do you think that would have realistically gone? He would have sent both of us to Fleet's office, and there isn't much she could do but give us detention."

The best thing about Lionel's ultra-expressive face was the ability to watch his emotions. Cari observed as he processed her words, tried to think of ways to argue, came to terms with her message, and rebelled at the underlying idea. "It's not fair, though!"

Cari lifted one shoulder in a half-shrug. "And? Not everything is going to be fair. Aren't you going to be a Lawyer?" She put a teasing tone into her voice, trying to lighten the serious conversation.

It didn't work. Lionel still looked frustrated beyond words and it showed when he spoke. "Yeah, a Lawyer who's going to fight for things to be fair! Cari, you can't just sit by when he's doing everything he can to make your life miserable."

Sighing, Cari tried to think of a way to phrase what she was feeling. "There are some people in life that you can fight with. You can disagree with them and they'll listen to you enough to change their mind about something. But then there are other people who are so set in the way they think that it's honestly a million times easier to just stay quiet and put up with them. You bite your tongue, keep your head down, and hope that you don't have to deal with them for much longer. Professor Garbin is the second kind of person. He hates me and that isn't going to change. Fighting with him won't make it any better and he's not going to wake up one day thinking that I'm his favorite student. All I have to do is make it to the end of this year and then I can drop the class. Until then, I'm trying not to rock the boat."

"But it's wrong! You don't deserve to be treated like that from someone who's supposed to be an unbiased educator."

"Lionel, of all the teachers I've met here at Echowick, one of them doesn't like me. Those are pretty good odds. No, he's not right to be treating a student this way, but better me who can take it than someone else who would go back to the dorms and kill themselves because they got assigned an essay for the fourth day in a row."

"Or," he said, using what she recognized as his 'persuasive' voice, "you could let me talk to Garbin and no one has to write essays."

"More like, I let you talk to Garbin and we all have to write essays." She laughed at his miffed expression. "Face it: The future Lawyer was out-reasoned by a future Broomsmith." Cari paused, considering for a moment. "Though I am sorry Kimber choked you with your own robes. That was sort of an accident."

He grimaced, rubbing his throat. "That was pretty unpleasant. And to think, Garbin almost gave you another essay because of it! That guy ticks me off so badly!"

As Lionel devolved into angry grumbling, Cari couldn't stifle her smile. "Lionel, calm down! It's an essay, known around the world for being non-lethal - at least, in most cases. Why does it bother you so badly?"

"Because they're a waste of time! There are so many other things you could be doing, but instead, you're stuck in your room writing essays to make up for something you didn't even do wrong. And he knows it! He's stealing you from your life, your friends."

That particular complaint hit close to home. Cari had tried to keep from complaining, but she was hip-deep in schoolwork and sinking fast. Still, she waved it off. "They really don't take that long to write. Besides, I have plenty of time for you guys."

"Really?" Lionel raised a skeptical eyebrow. "Is that why we've never hung out?"

Cari's mouth dropped open. "'Never'? We hang out all of the time!"

"No, just you and me." As she furrowed brows at him, Lionel reached out and snagged her hand. "That's one small reason out of many that you should stand up to Garbin: all that wasted time would be far better spent with me."

Suddenly uncomfortably flustered, Cari opened her mouth before she realized that she didn't know what to say. It was a mixed blessing, then, when Shadow peeked around the corner. "Cari? Are you over here?" His eyes dropped to their clasped hands and his expression hardened. "Come on, you're going to be late. You know Fleet's a stickler for students being on time."

Cari nodded and looked back to Lionel. He smiled warmly, gave the shadow of a wink, and gently released her hand. Cari smiled back briefly before turning to speed-walk down the hallway behind Shadow, who had apparently turned into a track star when she wasn't looking.

The next day, Cari was exhausted. She had finished all of her homework, but doing so had meant that she was awake into the early morning. She didn't know exactly how much sleep she had gotten, but it was not enough. She handed in her essay to Professor Garbin, watched the teacher incinerate it, and somehow avoided being assigned another one. To top things off, it was Thursday, which meant that she wouldn't have to see her least-favorite professor for three whole days! Things were looking up.

Well, some things were. Cari couldn't look Lionel in the face after the odd moment in the hallway yesterday. She didn't know what to make of it, though she had thought about the conversation a lot, analyzing from every angle. Meanwhile, if Shadow's attitude toward her was any frostier, she would turn into an ice sculpture. Cari shook herself. She didn't have time to deal with the oddities of her friends. There were more important things to focus on right now.

Mr. Kreer had decided that today was a good day to have the students try building a fire again. Cari stared at the small pile of kindling sitting in front of her, but couldn't quite manage to pull her mind away from the snarls of her social life. In fact, thoughts kept swirling, faster and faster until she was sure she would never extricate herself from the tangles…

A small jet of flame shot from where her hand lay on the desk, instantly lighting the kindling. Cari hurriedly pushed her chair back, removing her face from the immediate vicinity of the growing flames. The entire class had paused in their own efforts to watch the fire burning on her desk. Cari couldn't help but to smile a bit. Finally, something is going in my favor!

"Very good, Miss Romana," Mr. Kreer congratulated her, but before she could thank him, he Vanished the smoldering ashes from her desk and plunked down another bundle of kindling. "Here, keep practicing non-magical fire-building on this."

The emphasis on 'non-magical' had been slight enough to pass unnoticed by Cari's classmates, but still undeniably present. The professor had obviously seen what had really happened. Cari nodded and turned back to her desk, hoping that the other students would think the redness in her cheeks was due to the excitement and near proximity to fire.

By the end of the class, Cari's second set of kindling was completely un-singed. Professor Kreer told the students to clean up their desks and then dismissed them to lunch, except for Cari, who he asked to stay behind for a moment. Nervously, Cari waited for the room to clear. Am I going to get in trouble for cheating? It wasn't on purpose! Will he believe me?

"Cari, you seem stressed out. Is everything okay?"

It was so different from what Cari had been expecting that she could only stare blankly at the professor for a minute before answering. "Yes, I'm fine. Why do you ask?"

"Well, either something is wrong or you're getting remarkably skilled at non-verbal spells." Kreer smiled to soften the words and perched on the edge of his desk. "If you don't talk about it, you might shoot more fire from your hands. What if next time is when you're in bed?"

"It's really nothing, sir. I'm just a little on edge." Kreer raised an eyebrow, silently encouraging her. "This is a busy year, you know. Lots of schoolwork…" She sighed. "And I've been fighting with my friends. That isn't helping anything, I guess."

"Can I ask why you guys are fighting? Maybe it's something that can be worked out easier from an outside perspective."

"I'm not really sure. I think Lionel was flirting with me yesterday-"

Mr. Kreer winced sharply and she cut off, staring at him. He shook his head, "Girl stuff. Sorry, wasn't expecting that for some reason. I might not be the best one to help you with this, Cari. I mean, if you really don't have a choice, I'll bite the bullet, but nothing I can say is likely to help you here. I'm sorry I can't be more of a help to you."

Cari smiled at her favorite teacher. "It's okay. It means a lot that you tried, but you're fine. I think I have a couple of other people to talk with, so I won't force you. Thanks for checking up on me, though."

He grinned beneath his beard. "No problem. Now, go to lunch. How are you going to have enough energy to moon over boys if you don't eat?"

"I do not moon!"

"Maybe not yet, but if you're setting things on fire, I would say that you're off to a fairly serious start."

That was surprisingly hard to argue, so Cari didn't bother.

After classes finished for the day, Cari retreated to the library. There was plenty of homework for her to get a head start on before the weekend, especially since she really only had Saturdays to work and study. Unfortunately, she had only started on her second assignment for Transfiguration when she closed her eyes for a moment and ended up taking a short nap, head resting comfortably on the reference book lying open in front of her.

Eventually, Mrs. Helen the Librarian woke her up and told her that it was time for dinner. Cari argued as politely as her groggy brain was capable of, insisting that she needed to put away the books she had pulled from the shelves. Helen managed to out-stubborn Cari, nearly pushing her out of the library before the second-year gave up and began dragging herself to the cafeteria.

Since curfew was fast-approaching, the cafeteria was emptying out when Cari finally made it to the table. Her end basically consisted of Shadow, Lionel, and herself. Not ready to deal with the male drama, Cari almost left the cafeteria as soon as she entered it, but her stomach was beginning to wake up with a vengeance.

She sat down unceremoniously, eyes trained only on the meatloaf she deposited on her plate along with a healthy scoop of mashed potatoes. Trying to ignore the exclamations of, "Cari!" she began to eat rapidly. The faster I eat, the faster I get to go to bed.

Suddenly, there was a hand much too close to her face. Reflexively, she stabbed it with her fork and it disappeared. When she could pull her focus back to the table as a whole, she could see that Shadow, cradling his hand, was staring at her. "Did you need something?" she asked, voice less than pleasant.

"What is your problem? I've been asking where you were for the past two minutes and you didn't even look like you heard me," Shadow's mood obviously hadn't improved, either.

"Because I didn't," she snapped back. "I've been in the library, trying to get a head start on homework." And sleeping, but he didn't need to know that part.

"I thought that's what you did in the morning before classes, work on homework?"

"I do, but I have more homework than I have time to do it all." Cari looked toward Lionel, waiting for the inevitable, 'told you so', but he was just nodding sympathetically.

Shadow opened his mouth, probably to say something nasty, but Lionel cut him off. "You know, I've always found mornings to be the worst time to do homework. Maybe you should try sleeping a little later and staying up to work instead. The information is all fresh since you just learned it that day. Besides," he said with a little smile, "If you stay up later, you can come work on homework with me."

"And how would she do that?" Shadow asked, sarcasm thick in his voice. "Curfew is coming up and then we'll all be stuck in our rooms. Little hard to hang out with someone who's in a room in another Wing."

"It's okay, I'm friends with my Wing Leader. He says it's fine if I stay out late, as long as I'm just in the Student lounge. I'm sure he wouldn't mind if I brought a friend," he winked at her and stood. "Think about it, Cari. Good night, all."

Shadow barely waited until Lionel was out of earshot before bursting out, "What is that guy's problem? And why do you let him talk to you that way?"

Startled by the switch in topics, Cari could only open and close her mouth until she found her voice. "I don't see why my friendship with Lionel is any of your business!" she sputtered finally.

"Friendship? Yeah, I'm so sure it's friendship he's after. Grow up, Romana."

Cari glared at Shadow. "You need to cool it with the tone and the sarcasm if you want this conversation to continue."

"Maybe I don't want it to continue at all! If Lionel's so great, why don't you go talk with him?"

"That doesn't make any sense, Shadow! I was trying to have a nice conversation with Lionel, but you kept interrupting."

"Well, I have the answer to that: I'll just stop talking to you at all!" Shadow's dramatic, hurtful declaration echoed in the cafeteria as he stormed out. Aware that they had attracted the attention of the remaining people in the cafeteria, Cari kept her face carefully blank as she finished her meal alone. Two fights with Shadow this year already, she mused privately. Maybe having guy friends is more trouble than it's worth...

When Cari got back to the dorms, Spode was starting his second-year rounds at Shadow and Eric's apartment. He nodded to Cari, who returned the gesture before letting herself into the apartment. She was one minute before curfew, cutting it close, but at least she knew Spode was punctual about some things.

Walking into her room, Cari could have sworn that her bed was literally pulling her to it like a magnet, but Lydia was still awake and, as always, wanted to chat. "Hey, we missed you at dinner." Cari didn't respond. "I heard Shadow's pretty angry at you."

"I don't want to talk about it."

"Are you sure? Because he wouldn't tell us why he was so upset and we're dying of curiosity."

"I said- wait, 'we'? Who is we?"

"You know, Tessa, Kimber, Jael, Willa, and I. The girls."

"Oh. I still don't want to talk about it."

"Come on! I tell you everything. It would be nice if, just this once, you would actually open up about your life and-"

"Okay! He's mad because Lionel was flirting with me in the hallway yesterday and I won't tell him to leave me alone."

"Well, you can't keep stringing them both along!"

That brought Cari out from her expanded chest-slash-wardrobe. "Stringin- I'm not stringing anyone along! At the moment, I'm just trying not to flunk out of my classes!"

"If you don't tell them to leave you alone, it kind of counts as stringing them along. You're making sure they stay focused on you, that they don't look at other girls and it isn't fair! You're not even pretty!" A horrified look flashed onto Lydia's face as she realized what she had just said. "I'm so sorry, Cari! I didn't mean that."

Cari only listened to her roommate's stammered apologies for half a second before she grabbed her pajamas and slammed the wardrobe shut. "I need to change," she said shortly, shutting the bedroom door behind her on the way to the bathroom. Locked inside, she spent a solid half hour perched on the edge of the tub, trying not to cry.

With a creative maneuvering of mealtimes and a lot of time spent at the library, Cari managed to avoid seeing everyone in her social group. It wasn't until Sunday night that she came back from broom care/Quidditch lessons and found a note in Lydia's handwriting resting on her pillow.

Cari,
I cannot apologize enough for what I said on Thursday night. I feel terribly about it, and while there is no excuse for my words, I feel you deserve an explanation: I have had a crush on Lionel for a while and I've been trying to drop hints about him asking me out. He hasn't been responding like I had hoped he would and when you said he had been flirting with you, I realized why. My feelings were hurt and my pride was injured, so I lashed out on reflex.
I truly didn't mean what I said. I think you're beautiful and a good person to boot. You haven't been at meals lately, but we –Shadow and I both – would love to have breakfast with you tomorrow morning if you feel you can forgive us. (I forgot to write earlier that Shadow says he's sorry, too, but would rather say so in person.) Anyway, 7:00?
Your petty, rash, unthinking roommate,
Lydia

Cari smiled as she read it and then looked over at Lydia's bed. "I can tell you're still awake. I forgive you."

Lydia jumped out of bed squealing and gave Cari a tight hug.

Author's Note - Well, happy December, everyone! If you haven't already been bombarded by Christmas stuff, get ready. It's time. So, sorry for the longer chapter, but it kind of morphed into a lot of plot with no good place to split it up. Hope it wasn't too overwhelming! Big thank-you to HarryPotterFanHermione for the review. I hope school isn't being too painful! Hang in there! If anyone wants to leave a review, each one is treasured, but no pressure. Enjoy your day and all the magic it brings you!