After the initial excitement of the Sorting and start of year feast, things quickly settled down for the new Hogwarts first years. They moved into their House dormitories, made friends, got their class schedules, and soon found themselves settling into their new routine. For Rose and Savin, things were a little more complicated. Like them, many of their peers had also made friends and begun to settle into groups on the Hogwarts Express, or in the case of many students who had grown up in the wizarding world, had come into the school with friends already made. In most cases, these friendships could easily be continued after the arrival at school and the Sorting Ceremony, either between friends now placed in the same House or between those in different, but friendly, Houses. But as other attempted pairs of friends had discovered over the ages, keeping a friendship alive across the Gryffindor-Slytherin divide varied from difficult to impossible, depending on the strength of the friendship and how much each person cared about the opinion of their Housemates.
Rose and Savin were determined not to let anyone or anything break apart their new friendship. The connection they had forged on the train was the closest either of them had ever gotten to having a real, best friend, and neither was willing to let that go for the sake of a House rivalry. Rose had always been somewhat shy, and didn't feel that she had much in common with her roommates. There were only four Gryffindor girls that year, two of whom had grown up next door to each other. The third girl in the dorm had been quickly welcomed into that group, leaving Rose the odd one out. The other girls were not specifically mean, but they didn't exactly give Rose warm feelings about Gryffindor, or a desire to change herself to gain approval from them or anyone else in the House. Savin was more outgoing, and was already acquainted with his yearmates in Slytherin, but did not make any close friends within the House either. So, between Rose not caring at all what Gryffindor House would think about her Slytherin friend (if they even noticed her long enough to see who she spent time with), and Savin having enough authority in Slytherin to get away with hanging out with a Gryffindor, the pair felt confident that they could get away with it. They kept their friendship somewhat quiet, not wanting to draw too much attention which could quickly turn negative, but didn't try to keep things completely secret.
Due to scheduling decisions which the professors protested every year, many of the classes which were taught to two Houses at once placed Gryffindor and Slytherin together. When asked, Dumbledore would always reassure the angry professors (mostly Professor Snape, who felt that double Potions with Gryffindor and Slytherin was cruel and unusual punishment) that it was necessary for scheduling reasons, though many of the teachers suspected it was from a misplaced hope that forcing the groups together would help them get along. Whatever the reason for the frequency of the Gryffindor-Slytherin class combination, Rose and Savin were grateful for it, since they could work as partners in the classes that they had in common. Even for the courses which they each had with only their own Housemates, or with a different second House, the curricula and assignments were the same, so Rose and Savin were still able to study together outside of class for those subjects.
For that first year (and for the rest of their time at Hogwarts), Rose and Savin spent most of their time in the Hogwarts library – doing homework or other research, or just hanging out and talking quietly. Neither would have been exactly welcome in each other's House Common Room, and they would have been in the library often for the reference books anyway, so it seemed the best place to spend time together. The two managed to get on Madam Pince's good side early on by being respectful, quiet, staying out of trouble in the library, and asking her for advice not only on references for class, but also on other reading materials. The librarian, in turn, allowed them slightly more leeway than she usually gave to other students, and let them get away with things like checking out too many books and, on very rare occasions, even bringing food into the library. Within the first few weeks of their arrival, Rose and Savin had found a little nook in a back corner of the library with two comfortable chairs and a little table with a chess board, and from then on could be found there during most of their free time. It was an out of the way spot, in a section of the library where few students ever ventured, and seemed somewhat out of place in a library where all of the other work spaces were hard wooden chairs and tables. They asked Madam Pince about it once, curious why there weren't any other spaces like it in the library. She claimed that it had always been that way, and wasn't anything to get all excited about, but Rose and Savin remained convinced for years that there must be more to the story, though they never did find any evidence.
Both Rose and Savin were very studious, and enjoyed almost all of their classes. The main exception, unsurprisingly, was History of Magic. Savin found it particularly boring since he had already learned most of the material before arriving at Hogwarts and Rose, who had initially been very excited by the prospect of learning wizarding history, had quickly determined that the best use of that class period was to check out books on magical history from the library and read them under her desk instead of even trying to pay attention to Professor Bins. The other exception, for Rose at least, was flying. It hadn't occurred to her that she might have trouble flying a broomstick, since she had never had any trouble with heights before. But, as she discovered during her first ever flying lesson, there was a big difference between looking down from the top of a tower and sitting on a thin piece of wood magically suspended in midair, and while she had no issues with the former, she found herself panicking as soon as her broomstick rose more than a few feet above the ground. Luckily for her, flying was not a course which was required beyond first year, and the requirements to pass it were fairly few. With enough help from Savin, and many hours of extra practice with him on the weekends, by the end of that year Rose was able to fly a couple laps around the castle without screaming, falling off, or panicking too badly, though Savin never was able to convince her to fly over the lake.
Despite her difficulties in flying lessons and both their boredom in History of Magic, Rose and Savin did extremely well in all of their other classes. In particular, they both excelled in Potions, where Rose became the only Gryffindor student who Professor Snape ever praised publicly (and rather frequently). Though the Potions Master may have originally planned to treat Rose like any other Gryffindor, he was soon forced to admit, if only to himself, that he greatly enjoyed having her as a student. Grudging respect gradually turned into admiration and approval for a student who answered questions promptly and correctly when asked, did all of her brewing efficiently and with exacting precision, worked well with her partner, and didn't waste time showing off or asking foolish questions. The fact that Rose's brewing partner was Savin, who was equal to her in potions talent and interest and was a member of Snape's own House (making the openly biased professor inclined to think favorably of him), certainly did not hurt the situation. Soon Rose and Savin were unquestionably Snape's favorite students, as well as being the undisputed best students in the potions class. For the rest of their time at Hogwarts, the position of best potioneer was a toss-up between the two, with one or the other occasionally pulling ahead by just enough to be noticeable, before the other would catch up and bring the competition back to a tie.
Not that either Rose or Savin thought of it as a competition between them; both thought of things more as the two of them against everyone else, so they were pleased as long as both remained ahead of their classmates. The pair were fairly closely matched in their other courses as well, with the minor variations in their performances due more to interest than ability. Rose was a little more interested in Charms, enjoying how amusing and whimsical charms tended to be even as they did useful things, while Savin found himself drawn to Transfiguration. As he mused to Rose one evening as they sat in their little corner of the library, each curled up in one of the armchairs, maybe the reason he liked the subject had nothing to do with magic at all, but instead was about what it represented, a reminder that all things in life could be changed with enough time and effort. Rose couldn't hold back a smile at that, it was just like Savin to come up with a deeper meaning for something as mundane as which class he was a little more interested in, though she couldn't really argue with his conclusion. She wondered aloud what that same logic might imply about her – was her aversion to change in her own life what was causing her to do so badly in Transfiguration? The conversation quickly derailed after that, as Savin almost fell out of his chair from laughing so hard at Rose's description of second best in the class as "doing badly," and once they had both caught their breath, they remembered the essays they were supposed to be finishing, and the matter was forgotten.
The first two years that Rose and Savin spent at Hogwarts passed fairly uneventfully once they settled into their new routines. They kept mostly to themselves, focusing on their friendship with each other and on their studies, both official curricular studies and independent research. While they were both aware that it was unlikely that they could read through every book in the Hogwarts library before graduation, they were certainly willing to put in some effort in reading as many as they could of the interesting-looking ones, especially those that touched on advanced forms of magic which wouldn't be covered in their regular classes for many years if ever. The pair also spent a lot of time on independent research on magical theory and spell creation, in hopes that one day (perhaps sooner rather than later) they might be able to start creating their own spells. Despite being in Gryffindor, Rose found herself identifying more with Snape than with McGonagall as time went on, and by second year had started going to him for advice rather than to her own head of house, on the rare occasions when she felt the need to discuss anything with an adult (other than her parents, with whom she corresponded regularly via letters carried by Savin's owl, Gandalf the Grey).
Each of them went home for winter and summer breaks, writing to each other extensively during those times when they were apart. Rose suggested meeting up over that first summer, but Savin was concerned about how his parents would react and advised against it. After hearing a disgusted comment his mother made about muggles on the train platform when they got off the train at the end of their first year, Rose never brought up the idea again, and they made do with letters delivered to Savin's room where his parents wouldn't ask about them too much. He had avoided telling his parents any specifics about his social life at school, and they didn't really care enough to ask for any details, so as long as nothing too obvious happened to make them suspicious, Savin was confident his friendship with Rose could remain a secret. And so, two years passed with no more trouble than a missed exam question here or there, and no more excitement than a new defense against the dark arts teacher for second year after the previous year's professor suddenly took ill days before the start of term and had to be replaced.