Ro woke up the next day to find other three still asleep in their beds. It was not like she expected then to be awake since the sun had hardly dawned; she was an early riser. She took a few moments to decide what to do. There was no way she was going to just sit and do nothing. She was sure she won't be able to survive staying alone with her thoughts for too long.
So either she could go for a run or she could simply walk around the castle and explore. Deciding on the latter due to her minute knowledge of the place, she got up, took out her school robes and went for a bath. It took her barely fifteen minutes to get ready. Slinging her bag over her shoulder, she left the Gryffindor tower at six o'clock in the morning.
She walked through the castle aimlessly. When her watch told her it was 7:30, she tried finding her way to the great hall. Surprisingly, she easily made it. Her eyes searched the Gryffindor table before finally landing onto their quarry. Lily dressed in school robes was sitting there alone eating her breakfast while reading something that looked suspiciously like the Daily Prophet.
"Good Morning." Ro greeted the redhead as she sat down beside her, placing her bag on her lap.
"Morning." Lily returned, grinning as she added, "Guess what, Alice didn't know you wake up early. When she found your bed empty a little after six she woke us all up only to have Dora tell her that you are an early riser." She explained taking a sip of her juice.
"Not a bad way to begin a day I see." Ro replied smiling as she poured milk for herself.
"Morning." Alice greeted as she and Dora positioned themselves opposite to their dormmates.
"I don't think I need to wish you a good morning seeing you already had one." Ro teased them.
"Yeah, waking up to Alice's yells definitely marked a good morning." Dora said helping herself to breakfast.
Alice gave her an offended look as she changed the subject to classes.
The rest of the breakfast was relatively uneventful unless you count the mayhem caused at the Slytherin table because of their sausages turning into snakes which incident Ro was sure would lead back either to the fifth year Gryffindor boys who were literally falling off their benches roaring with laughter at the squeals of Slytherins or to the two older red heads sitting further along the table having a glint of pride on their faces. By the looks of it, they were twins. One of them caught her eye and winked at her. She realized a bit too late that she had a look of admiration on her face. She quickly turned her head away from their direction. The last thing she wanted to do was to attract unwanted attention to herself.
The snakes disappeared with a flick of Dumbledore's wand much to the Slytherin's relief as Lily threw daggers with her eyes at Potter who merely grinned proudly at her as if it was a show he had organized just for her. Honestly, that boy was both obstinate and oblivious. Well, both qualities usually do come as a package.
The other three girls continued talking. Their conversation was punctuated by Ro's nods and occasional words.
Ro once caught Dora looking somewhere. When she followed her line of sight, her eyes landed upon Remus Lupin and Ro immediately regretted her action. She felt as if she had intruded on something private but her discomfort was covered by the fact that Professor McGonagall had chosen that moment to hand them their schedules bringing Dora back to reality.
Lily peered over at Ro's schedule and exclaimed, "Yay, we have the same subjects. You too didn't take divination. Good, it really is a waste of time."
Ro tried her best not to look over at Dora so she scanned her schedule. She had Arthimancy, Care of Magical Creatures and Study of Ancient Runes as electives and the seven compulsory subjects.
Unlike her, Dora had opted to take only Divination and Care of Magical Creatures just like Alice; though why a seer would want to take divination was beyond Ro. Dora and Alice had a lot more free periods than Ro and Lily. Not that Ro minded. The more she kept busy the better it would be for her. More work was what she wanted or rather what she needed. It was not like she didn't like working but mostly, for her, work was a way to escape.
After finishing their breakfast, Lily and Alice led them both to their Transfiguration class since they had double Transfiguration first. Lily sat with Ro as Alice and Dora sat together. Professor McGonagall was a stern teacher. First thing she did was to give them a stern lecture on the importance of this year since they'd be preparing for OWLs. She advised them to focus on their studies looking mainly at Black and Potter.
After Transfiguration they parted ways as Lily and Ro had to go for Arthimancy while the others had to attend Divination. Remus joined them in Arthimancy as all his friends took Divination. The class was taught by Professor Vector who was a white witch with thin black hair. Remus and Lily talked as Ro listened to them. Though Remus was perfectly polite towards her, she still didn't talk much to him. Dora was maybe right in saying that she had severe trust issues.
They joined Dora and Alice in Care of Magical Creatures which was taught by Professor Kettleburn who, following Professor McGonagall's example, spent most of the period advising the students to work hard this year, his eyes lingering on Black and Potter which apparently had no effect on them whatsoever.
The four sat together for lunch in the Great Hall and talked while helping themselves to food.
"So, did you like Divination?" Lily asked.
"Yeah, it's really wonderful." Dora replied sarcastically.
"Don't be sour." Alice nudged her and then explained, "Professor Vablatsky, actually, was of the opinion that Dora's inner eye is weak."
Ro smiled thinking that the joke was on her but it faltered when she saw Dora's expressions. She knew Dora had been looking forward to properly learning the art of Divination and controlling her gift. But Ro was secretly glad that the Professor whom Lily had assured her was a fraud, hadn't declared Do a seer on her first day. It would have caused a lot of trouble.
Lily laughed as she said, "Don't worry Dora. She herself is probably blind."
Next was History of Magic, the only subject taught by a ghost. Alice told them to try and not sleep. And Ro knew what she meant when within the first five minutes of class nearly everyone was dozing off. But the Professor either didn't minded or didn't knew as he continued to make the Goblin's rebellion as dull as someone's snores.
Ro borrowed Lily's old Arthimancy notes and copied them on her notebook during the class. Many people were giving her weird looks since she was using muggle pens. She simply shrugged them off.
Charms was taught by Professor Filius Flitwick who was very short and was the head of Ravenclaw. He not only kept up with the tradition of giving a lecture on the importance of OWLs but also with the tradition of throwing Black and Potter a look while stressing upon maintaining seriousness towards studies.
The last class was the Study of Ancient Runes which no one took except Lily and Ro. It was taught by Professor Bathsheba Babbling who kept up with telling them the importance of OWLs but was deprived of giving Potter and Black a look. Ro personally thought that all the teacher should've gathered them before classes to tell them the importance of OWLs and then could've all given Black and Potter a look together. Not only it would've saved them all trouble but it would also have saved time. Time is precious after all.
She and Lily spent some time studying in the library after classes before they joined Alice and Dora at the dinner.
"So, how was your first day at Hogwarts?" Alice asked Ro.
"Engaging." was all Ro could think of but the other three understood as they nodded.
Ro was the first to go to bed after dinner because she really was tired. Mentally, she already was exhausted but she knew that taking classes and doing homework would be like vacation from mental exhaustion and she would rather be physically tired than mentally exhausted.
The last thing she thought before she drifted to sleep was that her trust issues were nothing compared to the trust issues that all teachers had with Black and Potter. It was a small relief if not much.