A/N- To clarify- Lexa is one year ahead of Clarke so in this chapter she's a fourth year.

You're better at potions than any Slytherin in your year and you get the sneaking suspicion that because of this Snape might actually like you. You don't have any concrete evidence but there's something in the way he doesn't vanish the contents of your cauldron if it's not exactly perfect or threaten you with no marks for the day. Sometimes he'll even sweep past your station and utter disproving things like 'I seriously hope you weren't planning on stirring that before you reduce the heat' or 'is that really how you plan on adding the powdered sea lion spine?' All of this before you've actually made a horrible mistake and ruined the brew.

You've watched him smirk as others ruined countless potion, only intervening if they ran the risk of an explosion- which was happening with increasing regularity in your later years as the potions got more difficult. You can even usually proofread Lexa's potions essays for her and spot all of her errors- she makes it up to you in charms and transfiguration- even though she's a year ahead.

Which is what you spend most of your third year doing. You catch a bad case of Mumblemumps and spend the year on and off in the hospital wing watching a revolving cast of injured quidditch players and you see the bad effects of sloppy spell work firsthand.

Lexa comes to visit, first under the pretense of checking up on a teammate. She trudges in and her hair is windswept, small wisps are sticking to her forehead, she is practically glistening with sweat which makes sense as it's the beginning of the school year still and the late afternoon sunlight has been streaming into the hospital wing for the past few hours. Her quidditch robes are all askew and her broom is over a shoulder.

She smiles when her eyes fall on you in your corner bed and she struts over, all fourteen year old swagger, "Hey." She offers.

"Hey."

"Everyone was asking about you at practice so I wanted to come check in." She says and though she's got her usual thin confident grin, there's just the slightest bit of color rising on her cheeks.

"That's really nice of you."

The next time is two days later, she comes in under the pretense of needing help with a potions essay. You spot her rouse from a mile away because not even a first year would mistake boomslang skin for blowflies wings in a healing draught.

You correct it anyway.

She does this the first few times you get sick, always coming in with a potions essay or a history assignment asking for your help. You always find two or three blatant errors she's fudged, and she stays for hours until Madame Pomfrey kicks her out.

Eventually she stops faking mistakes and she just comes to talk or work with you in close proximity. She sits beside your bed, her feet thrown up next to your own and scrawls out essays or reads the large tommes assigned to her. You are afraid that these encounters are going to be limited to the hospital but those fears are put to rest just before winter break.

You are working at a table in the common room after dinner one evening when a familiar book bag drops beside your feet. Lexa folds herself into a seat beside you and pulls out a roll of parchment, text book, and quill. She works quietly for a few moments until she feels your eyes on her.

"What's up, Griffin?" She asks with a raised eyebrow.

"Nothing." You reply quickly. There's plenty of empty tables and you've just come to the realization that she's sitting at yours because she wants to sit beside you. The revelation brings a bright smile to your face while you finish a star chart for astronomy.

This is how your friendship begins, you decide. Studying next to each other turns into breakfast together before classes turns into taking trips to hogsmeade. Raven is there too, making the third member of your trio of chasers but Lexa is different with her. She doesn't look at Raven with the same softens that she does you. She doesn't hold Raven's hand when walking through hogsmeade, you are different.

At first you try not to pay too much attention to it because the way she smiles her thin smile at you when you drop heavily beside her at breakfast with a thickly mumbled 'morning' (you've never been the type to be bright and shiny in the mornings) makes your stomach absolutely flip. She smiles at you like she's got a secret that only you are in on.

But then she does these things that make it impossible to ignore the tension building between the two of you. Like when you have a big exam coming up- she always gives you a chocolate frog the night before knowing your weakness for the sweet and how you have a tendency to cram. One evening your potions exam falls on the same day as her transfiguration practical and she is studying cross-species transformation curled up in a squashy armchair beside your table. Raven is at the table with you glaring at a textbook, she's in the same class as Lexa and she clearly is not as prepared for their upcoming practical as her fellow chaser.

You heave a sigh of exasperation when the explanation of antidotes all seem to blur together before you, and Lexa puts her notes aside.

"Come here." She instructs, spreading her knees apart and dropping a pillow between her feet.

You smile because shoulder massages from Lexa have untold healing powers and she can be stingy with giving them (except, as you learn, when it comes to you). In seconds you are settled on the pillow between her legs, leaning back and her hands are on your shoulders and the soft rough fingers are working through knots you didn't even realize you had.

"Do me next?" Raven asks hopefully.

The taller chaser chuckles, "You complained last time that I was too rough for your delicate shoulders."

"Please?"

"Nope." Lexa smirks, popping the p, "I only give massages to appreciative people."

Raven half growls in annoyance but smiles anyway when she returns to her studying. You on the other hand relax and get lost in the feeling of Lexa's hands on your skin. When she finishes with your shoulders, she moves up, carefully caressing the back of your neck and using her thumbs to smooth over the muscles strained from leaning over books for so long.

Then her fingers sneak up to tangle in your hair. Her nails rake lightly over your scalp and you can't help the little moan that escapes your lips at the feeling. Her fingers still for just a second before continuing, she massages your head softly until the fire burns down to embers and the common room has mostly emptied of people working.

Raven stands and stretches, throwing her things into her bag and departing with a 'night' thrown over her shoulder and Lexa reluctantly trails her hands once more from your neck down to your shoulders and gives you one final squeeze, "You should get some sleep before your test."

"So should you." You accuse.

She smiles her thin smile when you stand and toss the pillow you'd been sitting on towards an empty couch, "You're right."

You both pack up your things in silence and head up the stairs to the girls dormitory together. When you arrive at the third landing where you sleep along with all the other third year girls, she stops too. She plays with the strap of her bag and this feels different from the usual quick 'goodbye' at the end of the night. She fixes you with this look and her lips have the barest shadow of her thin smile.

"Sleep well." She says.

"You as well."

She nods and turns on her heel. She walks up one step before spinning around again and dropping down to the landing. She looks at you for a second then pitches forward to embrace you in a strong hug. It only lasts a few moments before she pulls away and throws one final 'goodnight' over her shoulder and walks up the stairs to her dormitory with all of her usual swagger.

A/N- Question: I've never written a story like this that puts characters into another established universe, does this story qualify as a crossover and should I change the classification to a harry potter cross over or leave it as is?