Chapter 23

Sorina left me room. By the next morning I was desperate for her to come back. Who ever knew that the hospital wing could be so boring!!!!!!! I did have one visitor though, not that she really counted as a visitor. Another girl, a Ravenclaw 2nd year, was also brought into the hospital wing. She was moaning and tossing and turning on her cot. Apparently she had tripped down the stairs and broke her leg. I spoke to her for a bit, but once Madam Pomfrey gave her medicine to heal her leg, she went straight to sleep. The girl, Devlin, and I had talked about school a bit. It really wasn't very fun, but it did use up time. When she was sleeping, I laid there staring at the ceiling, completely bored.

I spent all day in utter boredom, waiting for something to happen, someone to come, or something to do. I wasn't tired so I couldn't sleep. I wished for my gameboy advanced SP which was lying in my muggle bedroom. A small smile then crept onto my face. Wishing for something to do; it was just like the old days when I thought myself only a muggle. It had seemed that even when I had everything in the world, I couldn't find even a single thing to occupy me. Nothing was on TV, I didn't feel like reading or playing a game, my favorite site was down, I didn't feel like playing computer. It was a funny thought. I was now in a place that I had always believed to be magical and constantly exciting, and I was bored and wishing for something from my muggle life. Besides, a muggle electronic wouldn't work at Hogwarts.

I had nothing better to do so I pulled out my notebook and a pencil (pencils are easier to write with then quills). I stared at it for a while, not knowing what was I doing with it anyway. I slowly lowered my pencil onto the paper…and began to write. I wrote about the swing and my first portal. I wrote about meeting the people I had thought only characters in well written stories. I wrote about my friends, classes, abductions, and everything. I wrote about Sorina, and my loneliness. I wrote about everything that had happened since that fateful day about 1 ½ months ago when I was on that swing that went round, and round, and upside down. Everything. I realized so much. I even realized that, in a way, I was having adventures. I was living an interesting life.

"Ashley?" a voice finally asked, just as I had finished writing about Sorina leaving me to think on that shadowy illusion animal that she turned into.

I looked up, drawing myself away from my writing. Away from my mesmerizing journal. "What?" I asked, whoever it was.

A hand drew back the curtains surrounding my hospital cot and peered in. It was Sorina.

"Hi," I said, my voice filled with relief. "Do you know how bored I've been? There is absolutely nothing to do in here except, well, write."

Sorina grinned a little bit, blushing. She gave me a small shrug. "How're you feeling?" she asked.

I groaned and rolled my eyes. "I feel fine. I feel PERFECT even. There's nothing wrong with me. She should let me go now."

Sorina giggled a bit. But only a little. Why was she so nervous?

"What's wrong?" I asked her.

She looked up hopelessly at me.

I smiled and shrugged.

She sighed. "Okay, well, I sort of have a problem. Now that Dumbledore and you guys know my secret, my parents don't want anyone else to find out. They're…scared, I guess. So they want me to...," her eyes filled with tears, "…they want me to leave Hogwarts!"

I heard this and everything around me seemed to collapse. I slumped back onto my too white hospital pillows with only one thought in my head; "What a miserable day."

Chapter 24

"Ashley?" Sorina asked me.

I just laid against the pillows, eyes staring at the ceiling, blankly.

"Ashley, I will never let them make me switch schools. Not now. Not now that I finally have a friend. Don't' worry. We'll stay together." Sorina leaned forward and gave me a hug, but her words seemed more to reassure herself then to reassure me.

My mind was racing. If Sorina left, then I'd really be alone. I'd be with Stella and Nicole in the dormitory and while they'd be talking or doing homework, I'd have no one. In the middle of a class when the teacher did something funny, or I wanted to share something with a friend, Sorina wouldn't be there.

I couldn't let her leave.

"We'll figure something out," I said, practically talking to myself, patting my best friend on the back. "There has to be something we can do to keep you here. Right?"

Sorina sighed and wiped her eyes, quickly.

"Ashley?" asked a voice from outside the curtain surrounding my bed. Emma poked her head in.

"Hi," I greeted her, glumly.

"Hello. Ashley, madam Pomfrey says you can probably leave now. The shock of it's gone and you're all healed. And by the way, you have lessons with Harry and me tonight. And…," she stuttered, "Sorina, you're going to come too. Dumbledore wants you to learn control as well."

Sorina shrugged. "Okay." She lifted herself up from kneeling next to my bed and turned to Emma. "What time?"

"About 8 o' clock give or take a few minutes. Harry has something he wanted to do before and he has no clue how long it'll take. I gotta go now. See you guys there." She turned to leave, then paused. "Oh yeah. We're meeting in the same room we always do. I trust you'll show Sorina where it is, Ashley."

I nodded, then remembered something potter had said a month or go back. "Why do we always use that room? Professor Potter said there was something special about it but he never said what."

"Oh that? There's just something in that room that prevents people from dying from out of control magic. Nothing other then that. The room just keeps you from killing yourself or us." Emma told me matter of factly.

At that moment when she said that I felt a sinking feeling in the pit of my stomach. To keep me from killing myself or others? That was horrible!!!! It was a good idea for experimenting, but was I really that dangerous to others? I had only wanted to be normal!!!

"Well, seeya," said Emma, leaving. She hadn't noticed the miserable look on my face. To her it must not have seemed that bad. I wondered then how she had been trained to use her own powers. Becoming invisible seemed much simpler then portals and projecting yourself who knows where but now in a solid form. I didn't know if she had any other powers but still…

I grumbled as I got out of the hospital cot. My legs were cramped from so much lying down. I did a few stretched to loosen up and then Sorina and I walked back up to the common room. Finally, I could be free of the awful hospital wing.

"Don't look so sad," Sorina told me. "Once you've hit rock bottom there's nowhere to go but up. Just think bird."

I smiled. "Animals," I grinned, muffling my laughter.

Sorina gave me a "whatever sort of look". Then together we laughed and climbed to our tower to relax until 8:00 that evening.

Chapter 25

"Hey Ashley and Sorina," called Stella as we reached Gryffindor tower. She was sitting in a large, red chair facing the window. On her lap was a pair of binocular like objects that she had obviously been using. The carrying strap was still wrapped around her hand. Stella motioned for us to come over, and then turned intently back to the window. She dreamily let out a sigh, her thin, wispy hair settling onto her shoulder as if it were relaxing. "Isn't he adorable?" she asked us as we came over.

"Who?" asked Sorina, gently moving a pile of books off a nearby chair, and dragging it over.

"Toni Berrnstein. He's the Gryffindor keeper," she replied, her eyes on a single Quidditch player on the field, and her face settling into an expression of pure happiness, and love.

'God!' I thought. 'When Stella gets a crush, she really goes overboard.'

I glanced at Sorina, and grinned sneakily. Sorina was biting her lip, to keep herself from snickering at Stella's foolishness. Sorina saw me watching her and smirked at me. Then she rolled her eyes.

"Bye," I cried quickly, running up the stairs to our dormitory. Once there I collapsed onto my four-poster and laughed. Sorina soon joined me in cracking up.

"She was so googly eyes. I bet she just likes him because he plays quidditch. He has absolutely no brains at all, only looks," she chortled.

"She probably couldn't play it for her life," I joked. Then I stopped. "Hey Sorina, do you know anyone here with a broom?" I asked her.

She gave me a strange look. "Yeah. Why?"

"Well, you see, I've never played quidditch before….and it looks like fun. I was sort of wondering…," I blushed, feeling stupid at my seemingly random request.

Sorina shrugged. "No problem. I know a second year Ravenclaw whose brother owns a comet260. For your first time on a broom it should be pretty good. Y'don't wanna start out too big, I always say."

"Since when have you said that?" I asked, exaggerating rolling my eyes.

Sorina put her arm over my shoulder. "Since just a few seconds ago, but whatever."

I laughed, and we exited the room to go find a broom for me to ride.

Chapter 26

"Sorina, are you sure I can do this?" I asked, unsure. We were out on the quidditch pitch and I had successfully sat on the broom. Unfortunately, that was about all I had done.

"Relax," she laughed. "You'll be fine. And if not...well, the quiddithc pitch is soft." She grinned at me. I didn't find it funny.

I took a deep breath. "Well, here goes nothing." I said. "Up." I lifted the front of the broom and it sped up into the air. The breezes brushing against my face made me feel crisp and clean. I smiled as I closed my eyes. It didn't feel like I was flying. It felt like I was simply sitting on air. I returned my mind to reality and turned the broom slightly to the right. The sleekness of the broom, and the magic on it perhaps, made the turn take almost no effort from me. I was surprised at how easy this seemed.

"Trying coming back down a bit!" shouted Sorina.

I took another breath and shot towards the ground. Halfway down the broom started to shake a bit. 'What if it crashes?' I thought, suddenly struck by fear. 'The only other person out here is Sorina and she doesn't know much magic either.'

The broom rocketed off making crazy, twitching movements as if trying to throw me off.

Sorina was on the ground yelling for me to do something. Unfortunately, I couldn't hear what the something was so I had no clue what to do. I tried to push the broom's front towards the ground, thinking 'I can do this. I can do this. Don't get scared, Ashley, you can do this.'

I managed to make my shaky way to the ground. As soon as my toes touched the grass I hopped off, breathing harshly and shaking my head.

"Never again," I said, out of breath. "Never ever ever again."

Sorina winced. "You lost control. It happens when people try to fly for the first time. They get scared that they won't do it right and then the broom will get a mind of it's own."

I sat down on a bench and took a breather. "Professor Potter didn't have that problem the first time he flew."

Sorina rolled her eyes. "From what I've heard, Professor Potter had his mind on other things when he first rode a broomstick. Mind you, he still is an amazing flyer!!! He refs the quidditch games. A bit unorthodox, but with him here Dumbledore doesn't need to pay for another person to ref."

"That's right. Malfoy had stolen Neville's remembrall," I said, laughing. "That was his first time."

Sorina gave me a weird look. "What?"

"Oh, never mind," I said. "Professor Rowling's book."

"Oh, right," she replied, as if that explained everything.

I glanced at my watch. It was only 15 minutes after we had started. "Well, should I try again?" I asked her. "Now that I know not to freak out."

She shrugged. "It's up to you. Practice makes perfect. Once you're totally used to it you'll be able to have great control and speed. So if you ever wanna get better…"

I got the message. "If I don't wanna be a total coward when it comes to flying, you mean. I guess I'll try. If I get hurt…then what's it gonna matter, right? I may as well."

Gripping the broomstick tightly in my hands, I rose into the air. I was shaky after what had just happened, but at least I knew what to do. 'This might take a while,' I thought.

An hour or so later I was still practicing.

"Hey, Ashley. What d'you say we give it a rest. It's almost time for our special magic lesson."

I zoomed down and gracefully dismounted next to her.

As we walked into the castle, we were both wondering what would happen in the lesson ahead of us.

"Hey, Ashley. Hi, Sorina." Emma greeted us.

Harry just gave us each a stern nod. "Sit," he directed, pointing at two mats placed on the ground.

As we each sat, he explained, "Normal magic is a lot easier to control. We're going to try a method that's a bit…medieval," he began, struggling to find the right words. "A long time ago wizards and witches used to meditate to control their powers and broaden their skills. Now we use more modern methods, but these don't seem to work for you too. I want you each to close your eyes. Now."

Sorina and I shut our eyes tightly as Professor Potter described what we should be doing during meditation. "Relax your whole body. Concentrate on a single spot on your forehead. Put all your energy in that one spot. Take a deep breath in. As you breath in imagine power coming in through your feet to envelope your whole body. It should be as if a wave from the ocean in coming up to the shore, beating on the sand. Hold the breath for about a second and then breath deeply out. The old, dull, used energy should come out with your breath like a wave going back into the ocean. It'll take a while, but once you get used to it, it'll come naturally.

"Like quidditch," I grinned.

"Just like quidditch," confirmed Professor Potter.

After some thourough preperatiosn so our magic wouldn't cause chaos throughout the school, we began the meditation.

The room was silent, except for the breaths of the four of us, careful and slow. Out breaths locked into place, our hearts beating at corresponding times. We breathed out and in, out and in. Nobody faltered or skipped a breath. It was the beat of waves beating against the shore, but to perfection. In, and out. In, and out.

Suddenly, my eyes blurred, even through the darkness of my closed eyes, I saw pictures and place with people far, far away. They grew blurry and I felt a familiar sensation as I slid in between two places at once. Not again! If I left now then Sorina wouldn't have this lesson to be able to control her magic. 'I don't want her to leave Hogwarts!!!!!' was My last panicked though before the familiar feeling completely returned.