Jack: "…I wish to goodness we had a few fools left."
Algernon: "We have."
Jack: "I should extremely like to meet them. What do they talk about?"
Algernon: "The fools? Oh! About the clever people, of course.
Jack: "What fools!"
-Oscar Wilde, The Importance of Being Earnest.
~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~
Where You Belong
Chapter 5
The next day Andrea made a point of avoiding Severus as much as possible not wanting to have another confrontation like the day before. She made sure that she got to potions in enough time to get a seat far from him because she knew that he usually sat next to her in potions. Needless to say she was more then happy when Severus entered the classroom and didn't even attempt to sit near her; she assumed that he realized that she needed space from him.
Her attention was soon drawn from her thoughts as the class fell quiet with the entrance of Professor Caldwell.
"Welcome class. Severus if you'd be so kind as to gather all the essays from this half of the room and Mr. Pettigrew if you would collect it from this side of the room." The professor greeted as she made her way up to her desk in the front of the room.
A quiet shuffling was heard as everyone was busy pulling out their essay's and handing them to the specified person to collect them. Once all the papers were collected, in the professor's hands and everyone was seated again she began the lesson.
"Today we'll be brewing the first half of the Draught of the Living Dead which you all should have read up on for your essays. This will be a partnered project and before you all groan let me remind you that any noise from you will result in a deduction of points." The professor warned effectively stopping all the impending groans from the unhappy students. "I will be pairing you all up and you will stay in these pairs for the rest of the term and possibly into the next one as well. Now when I call out your names take note of who I paired you with because you will not be moving until I'm done calling out everyone's partners." The class silently acknowledged that they understood the professor's rule and listened intently as she began to call out the names.
Andrea only hoped that the professor would pair her up with anybody but Severus as he wasn't someone she wanted to converse with too often now that he was suspicious of her actions.
"Black and Pettigrew. Evans and Potter. Snape and …Crabbe. Lupin and…Taylor…" The Professor continued to call out the rest of the class's names but Andrea stopped listening. She was quite grateful that she wasn't paired with Severus but was a little leery about how her partner was going to react to being paired with her, he was a little cautious of her last night after he found out who she was.
Once the professor was done calling out all the names the class silently moved to sit with their partner and wait for more instructions from the professor.
"Hey, Taylor right?" Remus greeted as he stood next to the other stool at her table.
"Yea. Lupin right?"
"The one and only."
Their limited conversation was saved further destruction by the professor calling the class to order once more and telling them all that needed to be finished by the end of class for a passing grade. Once the professor was done talking the pairs gathered their ingredients and began making their potions.
"So are you any good at potions because I tend to always screw up somewhere." Remus stated as he carefully chopped up the wormswort.
"Yea I guess, I mean I've never really had trouble with it. Don't tell the others this but I've always treated it like muggle cooking. All you have to do is follow the directions exactly as they are and you can't go wrong." Andrea replied.
"I've never thought of it that way."
"Most don't because most don't think that they can compare muggle and magical things, not even muggleborns realize the close parallels between the two worlds."
"Are you muggle born?" Remus asked.
"No but I've lived in muggle area enough to see the parallels. Why are you muggleborn?"
"No but I live in a secluded area so I don't get much interaction with muggles."
"I see."
The rest of the class time the two made small talk about things here and there and Andrea helped Remus see how easy potions really was. Before they knew it they were done what was needed to be done and they still had ten minutes of class left so they carefully stored their potion and cleaned up their supplies. By the time the bell rang for the end of class they were the only ones that weren't rushing around to clean up.
"Well I guess I'll see you Friday then." Remus stated.
"Sure. Until then." Andrea replied as she and Remus went their separate ways to their next class.
Remus was joined by his friends outside for Care of Magical Creatures ten minutes after the class had started. Obviously their potions had not been quite the success that Remus' was. Once they class had settled down again and they got to working on their drawings of the Ashwinder their group had been assigned to study, Remus knew he would be questioned.
"So how was potions? I saw you and that Taylor girl talking the whole period, where you throwing threats back and forth the entire time?" Sirius questioned.
"Actually Sirius no."
"Then what the hell were you talking about the weather?"
"No we were talking about potions and other classes while we worked."
"Moony man are you sick or something?" James questioned.
"No why?"
"You really expect us to believe that you spent the entire class time having a civilized conversation with a Slytherin?" James threw back.
"She's not bad guys. Really."
"Remmy's right. She's not like the others Slytherins." Lily added as she turned from her Ashwinder to see the arguing bunch.
"Wait how do you know she's not bad?" Sirius asked.
"Easy I've been sort of talking to her every night for the past two weeks."
"When do you talk to her?" James asked.
"Why would you talk to her?" Peter added.
"Because she's a person too Peter, that's why I talk to her. How I talked to her was that one night I asked to share her table in the library not knowing who it was and she agreed without calling me any nasty names and she seemed like she didn't enjoy being a Slythrein when I asked her. So ever since I've been talking to her here and there when we're in the library studying."
"But she's still a Slytherin." Sirius pointed out.
"Sirius when are you going to grow up and realize that not all Slytherins are evil?" Lily questioned angrily.
"When they stop being slimy evil gits." Sirius retorted turning back to his ashwinder.
* * *
Andrea was already deep into her work when Lily showed up at the table; in fact she was so into it that she didn't even notice that Remus was following behind Lily.
"Hey, Andrea." Lily greeted. Andrea just sat there not hearing anything. "Andrea…Andrea." Lily called and finally got Andrea's attention when she tapped the girl on the shoulder. Andrea looked up startled and played with the charm on her necklace before responding.
"Sorry Lily I was a little too into my work. What did you want?"
"I was just letting you know that I was here and to make sure that it was ok with you if Remus joins us today."
"Oh sure." Andrea responded as she played with her necklace once again before returning to her work.
"How did she not hear you?" Remus questioned.
"I don't know she's got this great ability to block out everything when she works. I've tried to figure out what she uses but I've yet to figure it out." Lily replied.
The two Gryffindors settled down to begin their work not knowing that Andrea had heard everything they said. She smiled to herself as she grabbed her necklace once again and went back to her work. She was glad that no one had figured out her secret but then again it was pretty easy considering that they knew nothing about the technology she had. Even she wasn't sure how she had gotten it since she couldn't remember.
What Andrea had done was transfigure her CD player into the charm that was on her necklace and then she charmed it so that she could turn it on/off, change the volume, song and CD all with a certain sequence of stroking or rubbing the charm. This is what she used to keep all other noises away while she worked. She couldn't remember how she got the CD player seeing as even the muggles didn't have this technology yet but she was glad to have it.
After another hour or so of working Andrea was done her work for the week and began to pack up her stuff. At the sound of her packing up her stuff Remus and Lily looked up at her.
"You're done already?" Remus asked.
"Yea it doesn't take long just a bit of concentration to get it done faster." Andrea replied.
"Would you mind helping me with my potions essay? I'm not sure if I've got the uses right."
"Sure give it here."
Remus handed his essay over to Andrea and she began to diligently read it every so often picking up her quill to make her corrections. About ten minutes later she handed it back to Remus.
"There just copy what isn't marked up and make the changes on your new copy and you should do just fine."
"Thanks. Can I do anything to help you?"
"Well actually I need someone to look over my Charms essay. For some reason that class is my hardest and I can't understand because I understand what we're doing I just can't do it." Andrea confessed.
"Here I'll look at it." Lily offered. "I might be able to help."
"Oh come on Lily you're the top of the class in Charms. If any one can help you it's Lily." Remus added. Lily blushed in modesty at Remus' compliment of her Charms skills.
"Ok thanks Lily."
"No problem. Hey Rem can you check my transfiguration essay?"
"Sure. Andrea want me to do your transfiguration essay as well?"
"Sure."
For the next hour the three students switched essay's back and forth an occasional scratching of the quill breaking their silence as a mistake was being remedied. When they were finally done they realized that they still had an hour before dinner.
"Well thanks guys for helping me. I guess I'll see you same time Monday." Andrea stated as she finished packing up her stuff for the second time that day.
"Yea sure." Lily and Remus responded. The three left the library heading in their on directions.
Andrea headed down to the Slytherin common room to drop her bag off in her dorm and then she took to wandering the halls having nothing to do and no one to hang out with. After a while of wandering she found the long back hallway lined with its floor to ceiling windows. This was her favorite hallway because it was so secluded and yet so open. She sat down in one of the window sills halfway down the hallway and watched the students that were running around the grounds of Hogwarts.
Andrea had yet to venture on the ground except to get to her few outside classes, she couldn't remember why but for some reason she was a little leery of the grounds especially the forest. As she looked out over the grounds she noticed two of the Marauders, James and Sirius, sitting under the one tree on the edge of the lake. She saw a bunch of what looked like third years dipping their feet into the lake and a group of first years a game of tag. After a while of watching the goings on, on the grounds she turned her CD player and stared out at nothing as she lost herself in the music, once again unaware of being watched.
Remus had wandered down to the window hall to take the secret passage down to the lower levels when he realized that Andrea was in the hallway sitting in a window sill halfway down the hall. He had wanted to keep going on but something kept him where he was watching her every move, he didn't know what it was but something about her fascinated him. After watching her for a minute or two he shook himself and moved on knowing that soon enough James and Sirius would be looking for him.
* * *
Ever since that Friday Lily, Andrea and Remus would meet in the library after classes to do their work and then they would check each others work. This was their study group and though they always said that they were just a study group they were slowly becoming friends against the wishes of the Slytherin and Gryffindor houses.
"Hey Moony after Defense we're meeting to do some prank planning ok." Sirius announced as the four friends were leaving lunch heading to their next class.
"I'm not sure I can make it right after class Padfoot, I've got my study group."
"Moony you can't miss this."
"Yea Moony we haven't pulled a good prank in a few weeks, we need to plan a nice big one." James added.
"Why don't we do the planning after dinner then in the dorm room so people won't get too suspicious and then we can plan it without Lily trying to stop us." Remus responded once again being the only one to completely think things through.
"Ha! I knew you'd come around!" Sirius shouted out in victory.
"Yea whatever Padfoot." Remus laughed out as they entered the classroom.