ii. Interhouse Rivalries

Hogwarts First Year

Lyarra was very fond of Jemma. Growing up as a recluse because of her mother's sickness and her father's past, she doesn't know much about the outside world. Well, sure, she knows some things about the Wizarding World, but the muggle world she has no information about.

Jemma was happy to tell stories about the muggle world, as Jemma was fond of Lyarra too. Very fond. Lyarra didn't judge her like the older Slytherin students do. Lyarra was friends with her because they get along well. And since Lyarra was friends with her, her childhood friends Blaise and Christophe also came along. Sarah naturally joined along, since she had met Christophe and Blaise before at parties.

She kindly answered all of her curious questions of the magical Wizarding World.

One of them was the usage of owls for post deliveries.

"In the muggle world, we just send the letters through post." Jemma explained as they walked to potions together.

"How long will it take to arrive?" Lyarra asks curiously.

"Depends on the stamp that you buy. But we don't really send written messages anymore. There's this electronical devices that you call cellphones, or handphones..." Jemma pretended to hold a phone in her hand and type in with her fingers.

"We text people. Hit send, and then the reciever will get the message."

"Huh, that's cool. You have one?" Lyarra asked as they turned into a corner.

"I have a very old one. It's secondhand from my mother and I use it to text her where I go. I don't have many friends... And Hogwarts doesn't have any signals." Jemma awkwardly chuckled.

"You have us now," Lyarra patted her back. Jemma gave her a grateful smile.

"So what else can you do with the... Cellphone?" Lyarra asked again as they go in and take their seats inside the Potion's classroom. They sat quite front.

"Take pictures, or videos. Pictures are like still photos, and videos are motion photos."

"Oh, we have moving pictures as well. A photographer takes a picture of us with a special camera, and it will capture a couple seconds of motion." Lyarra smiled as she opened her scrolls.

"Ah, like the one from the Daily Prophet--"

"I got here first, Fred!"

"Nah, Jamie, you distracted me with that pie at breakfast!"

Lyarra and Jemma's conversation was cut off by the arrivals of two Gryffindors. The two turned around to see James Potter and Fred Weasley.

"We're in Potions with the Gryffindors?" Jemma asked.

"Apparently so."

Lyarra's eyes lingered at James as the two boys sat at the back of the class. James looked up from his laugh and caught Lyarra's gaze. Lyarra gave a hopeful smile and wave, only to be ignored by James as he turned to talk to Fred, completely ignoring Lyarra.

Lyarra's heart dropped.

"Oh, Lya..." Jemma turned her friend around, distracting her from her thoughts of her probably nonexistent friendship with James Potter.

Not long, Professor Slughorn arrived and class started.

Slughorn adored James Potter. He put the boy up in a pedestal for being the son of Harry Potter. He praised James for 'couragely' trying to answer the correct question.

Lyarra's also a student that Slughorn had grown to like. He was reluctant since she was a Malfoy at first (Lyarra heard that her father wasn't invited to the Slug Club, and he was quite annoyed by it) but since she was in Slytherin, showed that she was smart and has a knack for Potions, Lyarra also rose as Slughorn's favorite alongside James Potter.

Jemma pointed it out playfully to Lyarra who denied yet blushed. Every professor seemed to like Lyarra for being smart and diligent. She was very active in class and helped her friends when they needed one. She always gets questions right and earned the house quite an amount of points.

James Potter had lost some for Gryffindor for dozing off in History of Magic because his head fell onto the table. And for talking to Fred when they were in Charms. He was in a mood the whole day because some Gryffindors were looking at him with a stink eye.

Lyarra noted that he seemed to be tired as there were bags under his eyes only on the first day of school term. He must've not slept last night to be that cranky.

Lyarra sighed at the tought. They then tidied up their stuff and the two joined Blaise, Christophe, and Sarah to go to their first Flying class.

Lyarra was excited, and James Potter ignoring her couldn't even bring her spirits down.

They have Flying classes with Gryffindor. To Lyarra's luck, across from her stood James Potter, looking smug.

Lyarra only raised her eyebrow. Does James really think he's that good? He acts so high and mighty. Like everything's easy for him.

"Up!"

Both James and Lyarra's brooms shot up to their hands at the same time. Both of them smiled. They looked up to the one across from them.

Their eyes looked at each other. James looked quite annoyed while Lyarra looked smug and challenging now.

They followed the professor's instruction to mount their brooms. And stared at each other in challenge.

"Go!"

Both James and Lyarra shot up to the sky, fast. The other students were looking at them in awe. The two waited for the other students to get at the preferred height, then the professor instructed the students to try and do a couple of laps aound the field.

James looked at Lyarra smugly and took off. Lyarra followed behind him not long after, quickly catching up to him easily. She flew ahead of him, and he caught up to her too. It went back and forth until James started going off course, and Lyarra followed behind. They were so invested in one-upping each other that they didn't hear the professor's shouting at them to slow down and that they were going off course.

The four Slytherins look at the two in amazement. Fred was next to them and sighing, mumbling something along the lines of "Jamie" and "Pride".

Lyarra was ahead now. She didn't really care about James anymore as she was annoyed by the treatment that he had been giving her and flew faster with the school broom. She was catching up with the horde, and quickly manouvered herself past the students.

"Out of my way!" James tried to follow along to one-up her again, but accidentally bumped into a clumsy first year Gryffindor muggleborn that had never flewn before.

The boy screamed as he went off course, his broom not controllable. Lyarra quickly noticed as she glanced back. She quickly turned around her broom and dived to help the boy, before he further lost control and fall off his broom.

Luckily Lyarra caught him just in time before he fell off, and steadied the boy who looked scared. The professor shouted for everybody to go down and land. Lyarra carefully led the scared Gryffindor boy down. When they landed, the boy thanked Lyarra. He instantly retched and Lyarra quickly scooted away, not wanting to get showered by the contents of his stomach.

As James got down, he got reprimanded by the professor for flying fast and not being aware of his surroundings while Lyarra got praised for saving the Gryffindor boy, to her surprise.

"And Malfoy. Thank you for helping Hamill there. Truly a wonderful manouver."

"But professor, I was also flying fast too," She tried to argue, as she felt James being reprimanded was unfair.

"You knew how to use the broom to fly, and you didn't push the fellow student that he lost control for his broom. And with that, minus 30 points from Gryffindor and 40 points for Slytherin."

Lyarra's eyes had gone wide as James scrunched his nose. He turned to glare at her before he turned around to go back to the castle angrily, as the lesson was over.

"Hey, James, I'm sorry--" Lyarra tried to apologize as she caught up to him at the steps to the castle. James ignored her.

"Look, I also know that it was unfair to you that only you got punished. I'm in the fault too. I will talk to Headmaster McGonagall about it, James, please--" Lyarra tried to stop him and held his arm, only for it to get swatted away.

"Get way from me, Malfoy!" James replied with so much spite Lyarra flinched and stopped walking. He turned around to give her the nastiest glare that she had ever seen.

"Stop calling me James! We are not friends!"

"I... I-I thought--"

"I did not know that you were a Malfoy. And a Slytherin, at that," He eyed her tie disgustedly.

"What's wrong with me being in Slytherin?" She asked as she frowned, not liking the implications. James ignores her and continues his rant.

"Everybody's just in your finger. They all like you and praise you like you're the princess of some kingdom. Ever so smart and perfect... I wish they just know what you truly are. A fake, evil Malfoy princess in Slytherin who likes to meddle in dark magic." He spat.

"Oh... So that's how it is." Lyarra huffed and walked past James angrily to the castle.

"Just so you know, Potter, I never saw you as the majority of the annoying Gryffindors. It's a shame that you saw me and think I'm just like the other evil Slytherins that you have grown up hearing stories of." Lyarra flipped her hair purposely to hit James in the face, and grumpily walks up the steps.

"Hey!!!"

"If you want me to be the evil Malfoy princess in Slytherin in your stories, then so be it. I will." She warned.

And with that, she walked away, fuming, also leaving behind a shocked, angry James Potter.

Today was the start of their growing rivalry, and oh, how Hogwarts don't know what they have in what's to come.

A/N

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