Hello again, and again I didn't get this chapter in as fast as I wanted too mostly because of several power outages that got rid of my work because I totally forgot to save it, and then I started over, you guys know how that is- ANYWAY here's the fifth chapter in Spell of the Stars, please enjoy!

Ravenclaw~ Challenge your wit

Typically Wolffe liked reading enjoyed it even, what he did not enjoy was Lilly dumping a bunch of books on his Medical Cot at six in the morning the books themselves big enough alone to knock out a dragon, and told me to start reading as she herself picked up a book. I turned one over in my hands slightly- Knowledge through the ages, Spells and witchcraft 1985, and lastly, the book Lilly was skimming through, The History of Magic. "You know, these probably won't help with the Ravenclaw trial," I muttered but opened the Spells and Witchcraft book nonetheless flipping past the introductions to the first page of the book like a normal person why Lilly read through those pages.

"The Ravenclaw trial could be anything all that matters is that we have the knowledge to pass it."

"Not necessarily, Ravenclaw values the pursuit of knowledge, they'll probably just make us go through a library or something to find specific answers." or you know riddles, which was my bet because you had to answer riddles to get into the Ravenclaw dorms. Don't ask me how I know that, because let's just say that Ravenclaw boy had a... "Nice" surprise waiting for him the moment they left me unsupervised here in Medical. I also found out his name was Alder Fern which was a shit ass name to call a child but you know his parents must have given him one look and been like "Yeah his name is fucking Alder Fern" and tossed a wand at his head and left. Maybe that was why he was such a dick, and even if it wasn't there was no way Wolffe would have any sympathy for him because he was a bloody asshole and there was no excuse to be like that to people.

"If we worked together we could probably win this."

And get Alder Fern out of the race? Of course, if we did that we'd have to face it off in the final challenge unless Ravenclaw won which wouldn't be the best case to go in with but "We could do that, maybe throw him off his game, annoy him you know? He cares very much about appearances," I remembered in the last trial the first words out of his mouth was to scoff at how I looked, which said a lot actually, he was vain and we could use that to our advantage "Make him look stupid or something, bring his ego down a few notches and expose his crippling sense of self-doubt and worth." Because a guy that vain was using appearance to make up for the fact that they knew they were colossal dicks and made up for it in trying to appear smart and shit. Lilly blinked and slowly closed her book "I'm sorry?"

"He's got a big ego that makes up for the fact that he doesn't think very highly of himself." Did she not understand- wait... her eyes were flicking from me to the broomstick she had brought in along with the books about three hours ago, she was thinking of something a plan, so all I needed to do was wait and trust her to come up with a solution to our problem, meanwhile, I looked back down to my book tapping it softly.

"You know..."

My gaze snapped back up to Lilly of whom was considering her broom closer "In quidditch, the game is 90% confidence and teamwork and 10% actual skill and planning." she looked down at her book "Maybe we should let Raven boy overthink the trial and read all these useless books, and we go in their next week and-"

"And what? Just wing it?" I raised an eyebrow smirking, "I like it."

Time Skip
...

After Wolffe was dismissed from Medical we went to the quidditch pitch, the Slytherin practice visible from the stands as I watched their team run drills, Wolffe picking at the bandages on his hand and shoulder, "You know you're not supposed to pick at those." I nudge his hand away from them, he rolled his eyes "I know but-"

"They're itchy?"

"No, I was thinking, this is just force of habit." He ran his uninjured hand through his short curled hair sighing "I wanted to thank you for you're..." he cleared his throat looking at the Slytherin players, I raised an eyebrow and decided that I didn't get to see him uncomfortable much, he was always in control and calm if not a little annoyed at times, so of course I wouldn't drop what he was going to say that was making him twitchy. "I'm?" I promoted and he turned to me raising an eyebrow, completely unimpressed with how much I was enjoying this "You helped me out of the woods- you came back even though you didn't have to. Thank you." oh. I hadn't expected that, Wolffe rarely looked back on things, he'd say thanks at the time of the occurrence and then move on, the fire had scared him we both knew that and he had done his best to avoid any conversation at all about the last trial, I'd seen him take on dragons and squid monsters, and James for that matter, he had done those things with zero fear or hesitation, not even the spiders had scared him it was the fire. And Lilly wanted to ask him about it, help him but it wasn't her place. "Well I think I did more than help you, I rightly saved her bloody ass from falling face-first in the dark woods," I punched his shoulder smirking, he smirked softly and nodded, grateful for the save "But of course what kind of gentleman would I be if I couldn't admit that you saved me from such an abysmal fate?"

We turned back towards the players flying over the pitch "You know when I'm up their I feel so free, like I could fly anywhere, you can't hear anything up there if you fly fast enough, and I'm good at the sport." I leaned on the wooden wall running across the edge of the stands, out of the corner of my eye I saw Wolffe raise an eyebrow at me "If you're so free up there why do I hear a "but" coming on?"

"But I know that no matter how much I get up there and win, I know eventually, I'll have to come back down, or maybe I'll fall, or I could get hurt, or I'll lose the game why I'm flying and something will happen and I'll have to get my feet back on the ground. Every time I'm up there I'm afraid it'll be the last time."

There was a pause long enough to make Lilly believe that Wolffe wouldn't reply to the seemingly out of anywhere question before he took a breath "Me and my twin Fox, we've always stuck together practically joined at the hip since we were born, and I always work hard so I can make him proud of me you know? Like if I don't do everything perfectly what's the point? And I'm always afraid that if I mess up enough times he'll stop being around, he'll just leave. And I know in my brain somewhere that he wouldn't abandon me, but even with that logic, it doesn't make it any better."

I turned to look at him, it didn't explain the fire at all-or maybe it did but Lilly didn't know enough about Wolffe to know how it connected back to abandonment and his twin Fox, but it was something Wolffe had given her something that Lilly had a feeling he hadn't told anyone else.

They watched quidditch players fly through the sky for the rest of their Sunday until they had to part for dinner.

Time Skip
...

We would have to wait a week before the next trial, which would give Wolffe plenty of time to drown in paperwork when he wasn't spacing out in class. Things were relatively back to normal other than people now whispering about the final three students left in the Trials and betting who would be the next person out. James still shot him dirty looks that made Wolffe want to throw the stone statue in the courtyard at his face again, mostly he chose to ignore James because the Gryffindor knew that he would beat his ass into the ground with the statue again if he threw a spell his way, the memory made Wolffe smirk slightly as he walked into Transfigurations, he'd gotten detention when he did that, but Professor Flitwick had been incredibly impressed and asked him to join the dueling club, which Wolffe had done excitedly.

"You're in a good mood," Lilly smirked scooting over from the spot she had saved me, I placed my book bag down before shrugging "Just remembering when I-"

"Quiet class! Today we're going to be turning beetles into pin cushions and if you fail to pay attention you will fail the OWLS in a few months." Professor McGonagall stepped in front of the class and I snapped my mouth closed turning to the board set up at the front of the class. "Don't look now, but I think someone just transferred into the class." Lilly hissed and I tilted my head towards her because she told me not to look "who is it?"

"James Potter." Lilly hissed softly and rolled her eyes so dramatically that even I was impressed. "You don't like him much do you?"

"He's fine as long as he's not teasing Snape or you, he's a great quidditch captain but he's got the biggest ego you can imagine."

For some odd reason, it filled me with malicious glee to hear Lilly speak with disdain towards the quidditch boy, and I threw him a smirk behind my shoulder, one he followed up with a glare.

Time Skip

"Ugh do I have to?" grumbling I lifted the glass mug and glared at the golden liquid filling it, "Yes you have to it's mandatory, you can't leave Hogsmeade until you taste butterbeer for the first time!" She was smiling and sipped hers that had gotten to half-empty before I had even sat down, Lilly was celebrating her recent win against Ravenclaw and told Wolffe that it was technically a win for him too because Alder was the beater and kept missing the quaffle or whatever thing he was supposed to hit with his bat. Lilly had told him that it meant that their tactics with not stressing and checking out almost half the library was working because it meant that the Ravenclaw boy couldn't get the books to study and shit, what Wolffe thought it meant was a lot of glares and angry messages sent from pissed off owls to attack him with letters.

"So why aren't you celebrating with your mates?" I looked up from my butterbeer and Lilly shrugged "Normally I would but I wanted to introduce you to this for the first time, you're going to love it!"

Humming non-committedly I raised an eyebrow "So it has nothing to do with the fact that you got benched after you almost sent a quaffle at James's face?" That in Wolffe's not-so-humble opinion had been the highlight of the game, he had paid good money to get an enchanted photograph of that shot from the photographer who caught it on film. He was still waiting for his copy. Lilly smirked from the rim of her glass and snorted slightly "Why did you try to knock him off of his broom?" I asked taking a small sip of the butterbeer which actually wasn't too bad, smooth, and went down fine, a bit sweet though.

"He said girls couldn't hit worth shit."

I choked immediately on the next sip I had taken of the drink.

...

Wolffe's eyes went wide and he coughed on his drink, and I. Lost. My. Shit. Laughing hard in my seat as my team on the other side of Hogsmeade and the other occupants turned to look as Wolffe tried to breathe, wheezing as he laughed which only made me crack up harder. Finally, he composed himself enough to stare at me completely dumbfounded "What on God's lovely earth possessed him to say that to you?"

"He didn't, he said it behind my back as we were going in the air."

Wolffe opened and closed his mouth slightly finally settling on a "Why'd you miss?!" before I started laughing again.

"Well, this is just great." I huffed struggling to move for a moment- The three of us Alder, Lilly, and I had been tasked to do a glorified scavenger hunt and one of the clues we found (a map) along with multiple herbs and plants had led us to a giant hollow tree- we crawled inside, Alder tripped and made all of us fall into a very depressing hole stuck between each other and the roots of said tree.

"Well, it's not my fault you two don't know how to read a magical guide! This wouldn't have happened if you had just followed the instructions!"

"Spoken like a Ravenclaw, you know the instructions were wrong, they were leading us in circles!" I hissed, if my hands were free I would knock the shit out of this fucking suck-up, said boy just kneed me in the gut before turning to Lilly "You finished with the door yet? It's getting kinda cramped in here."

No kidding anywhere with this kid would be too cramped. All he'd done so far was whine and dictate over us, it was so fucking annoying.

"Almost, how long did you say it would take?" Lily shifted causing her to knee me in the spine, something that was definitely already bruised. "Ow hey watch it Evans."

"Sorry Wolffe." She shifted back and despite it being pitch black in here I could see Alder in front of me, and Lily's ripped robe out of the corner of my eye- wait. I shouldn't be able to see those? Where was the light- "Hey is it just me or is it getting brighter in here?"

There was a small pause and Alder nodded "It is, wait. Wolffe, I think my wand landed under you."

"Hope it broke." I tossed it to him after some fumbling around, "Got it!" Lily crowed and we scrambled for the opening in the side of the roots, causing us to go deeper into the tree.

...

"Huh, big room." Wolffe brushed the dirt and mud off his outfit as he looked around, the roots had formed some sort of cavern directly underneath the tree, Lily laughed "Ha I knew I could get the spell! This place is huge!"

"Thanks for stating the obvious," Huffing I walked stiffly past them acutely aware of Wolffe being in possession of all the herbs. Like we should trust a Slytherin- What was Evans thinking? What was I thinking I should have at least the map they couldn't read it. Just as these thoughts ran around my brain something hit the back of my head and I turned to see Wolffe with the rolled-up map, he must have hit me with it, though it hadn't been hard at all "Come on Fern, thought you wanted to finish this up."

I grabbed the map, was he planning something? Why was he giving it to me now? "We should go through the tunnel on the left and-"

"Uh, Alder which one?"

Wolffe and I turned at the sound of Lily's voice and... There were four pathways, all looked the same and all but one were marked on the map. "This must be the first test."

"First test? The flower picking wasn't enough?" Wolffe grumbled and walked up to the pathways studying each one, I looked back at the map- nothing had changed "There's only one pathway on here, why isn't there four?"

"We should do just pick a random one."

"We should definitely not do that, perhaps we can find clues for the pathways-"

"Let's go with the far left."

I looked up Wolffe with a raised eyebrow "Oh really, and why should we do that?"

"Because we've only taken left's in this tree maze, I say we continue going left."

That was... Honestly fair, and kind of smart- I for sure hadn't picked up on that, which was quite annoying actually- So I waved my hand forward "Well then, you first."

...

It smelled like dirt.

It was really humid and wet.

And nothing remotely appealing in a cool under tree cavern, you'd think there would be more monsters or something to fight, but we've mostly just been walking.

"How much longer?"

"We're nearly to the sphinx."

"Sphinx? That a monster we have to fight or something?" I asked looking behind me at Alder, who shook his head in turn "No their magical guardians that protect magical artifacts or spells, they're mostly located in the desert so it's odd that it would be marked here on a map for the middle of the woods."

"I think we're here, or I mean theirs a statue." Wolffe called from the front and we hurried up to catch him to see- "It's a weird stone cat lady."

"Of course it's not actually a sphinx I should have known- Wait what's engraved in the pedestal?"

"Words," Wolffe snapped sarcastically before reading it out loud "If you've got me, you want to share me; if you share me, you haven't kept me. What am I?" He looked up and at us with a single eyebrow raised "Well that's a stupid riddle."

"Do you know it then?"

"No, but there's no clues or anything! How are we supposed to figure it out?"

"Ugh this is boring," I sat down on the stone pedestal "Is this all we're supposed to do? The other trial was so much more fun."

"This isn't supposed to be fun, we're competing to win! There's nothing fun with this!" Alder snapped and started pacing again muttering under his breath. Wolffe flopped down next to me and started picking at the mud that had gotten caked onto his shoes "Should we just wait until he figures it out?" we looked back at the young Ravenclaw boy who was repeating the riddle over and over again, "I don't think that'll be anytime soon."

"Agreed," Wolffe tilted his head towards me then "Valentine's dance is coming up, I think James wants to ask you to it."

"Make you jealous?" I smirked at him, but he shook his head "Not the point, besides James called dibs so-"

"He what?" I hissed voice raising slightly and Wolffe blinked as he looked at me tilting his head in a very Dog like gesture "James called dibs."

"On me?"

"On asking you to the dance Lily, you can't call dibs on a person," Wolffe rolled his eyes then paused biting his lip "Or at least that's what I think he meant when he called it, I'm pretty sure he just meant to the dance."

"When have you been talking to James?"

Wolffe shrugged "He's actually not a bad guy when he's not screwing with Snape or hanging around you."

"So you've been hanging out with him."

"Sure, I've got no bone to pick at him, he's just paranoid. Besides Black and Lupin are fun to hang out with so I've been ending up hanging with their group for the past few months why you've been doing your prefect stuff."

"You dropped an entire courtyard on him, in your first few weeks of school."

"Eh, he got me back," He turned to face me "You don't like that I'm hanging out with him?"

"No, I don't! He's been bullying Snape and you, and he's a bloody jerk! Why didn't you tell me earlier about you being best buds with him?" Why was this making me upset? Sure James hadn't teased Severus in a very long time, now that I thought about it, he's even backed off from me- so why didn't I like the idea of them hanging out?

Wolffe studied me for a moment before speaking "I didn't tell you because I didn't think it mattered, sure he's a bit immature but he's not all bad, just like Me and Snape aren't all that bad, you'll have noticed the only harmful thing he's done this year is called you weak- which wasn't directed towards you but to the other team's seeker, and throw some stones at me. Besides, isn't it my choice if I want to be friends with him? Why do you get to dictate who I hang out with? It's not like I'm making you play nice with him."

"That's not the point!"

"Then what is?" How was he so calm? We're stuck in an underground tunnel, basically trapped, and he's here telling me he's best friends with the marauders now! "You keeping secrets from me! That's what."

"It's hardly a secret Lily," Wolffe rolled his eyes and stood up "I won't stop hanging out with Lupin and Black-"

"If you guys are finished now I've got the answer," Alder smirked from where he was standing in front of us, looking insufferably smug.

"Well, then what's the answer?"

"Thanks to you guy's little fight, I was able to use it to figure out the puzzle, the answer is- I am secrete."

The stone started moving and I jumped off before something happened, we watched as a table of sorts rose up from the hole the statue had moved off from.

A cauldron and two potion bottles decorated the platform.

...

Oh, that's how we would get eliminated.

"If I don't take the bottle there's still a chance I won't be eliminated from the trials since I'm in first," Lily spoke and I nodded, that was the most logical choice, though I wasn't going to fight over the bottle, these two despite being ridiculously annoying and a bit stupid at times had my respect. And though I wanted to win, in the end, Ms. Evan's was right and this was just a game. "I say we take that route, Wolffe take the herbs out and we'll make the potions."

He scowled obviously not liking it but did as he was told and placed them carefully on the stone table, I moved the pistil and mortar towards him "Start with the claws and three leaves."

We worked for a while waiting for the potion to cure and finish, following the instructions on the potion bottles to make a golden liquid that would do who knew what.

"So do we just... Drink it?" Wolffe asked holding the potion bottle close to him, studying it for a moment, and looking back up at me. I shrugged "The instructions didn't say to drink it, and it looks like some form of an elixir, we should probably save it for now."

He nodded "So... what now?"

"Uh, guys, out of pure curiosity what's the best way to kill a stone statue that's impervious to spells?" Lily squeaked.

...

"Oh, this is glorious! Should we drink it now?" I yelled as we ran down multiple pathways getting lost now that Alder had lost his fucking map, that statue of the Sphinx moving silently behind us. "No, we don't know what it does!"

"Then drink it genius, you're the smart one!" We turned another pathway and I had to skid to a stop, heart leaping out of my chest as I grabbed both Alder and Lily to keep them away from the ledge, black inky water moving below us. Alder was pale fumbling for his potion bottle uncorking it before licking his lips "What if it's poison to kill the statue?"

"They wouldn't have given us just two then, Alder drink it!" The longer we waited, the closer the sphinx got us. Alder nodded chugging the drink before fading out of assistance. I blinked Maybe he was still okay?

Then the sphinx charged through the doorway and Lily dragged me forward, off the ledge, and into the frigid waters below.

I surfaced coughing and the stone sphinx had already sunk to the bottom of the water source, Lily surfaced next to me- her wrist was bent oddly and in the dark light, I could see that there was a decent-sized cut on her forehead. She held the potion bottle towards me "Drink it Wolffe and this'll be over-"

"No, you got to get out of here, your wrist." I shoved the bottle towards her "I know the way out from here Lily but you need to get checked out by Madam Pomfrey."

There was a pause where I could see Lily wanted to be brave and selfless but as she used her arms to stay afloat I could also the pain warring as well and she nodded "It appears I'm always leaving you behind, Wolffe."

"S'okay Ms. Evens," I smirked "Don't let me hold you back." I turned away and began to make my way towards shore looking back only once to make sure Lily didn't do anything stupid.

But she wasn't wrong- I did always seem to be left behind.

Sorry this chapter was so long and the ending was pretty bad, but I do hope you all enjoyed this one it took me a while to figure out what I wanted to do for this trial that was Ravenclaw"y" and for some reason Sphinx kept popping up as something I wanted to put in this story- but as it's comment knowledge there aren't really any sphinx's in England (XD) I chose to make it a cursed statue so TADA!