Part II
When Leah woke the next morning at eight am, she saw that Ellie, still in her pyjamas and her hair a mess, was searching madly through her pile of textbooks for a particular title.
"What have you lost now?" she asked sleepily, knowing Ellie was always leaving her books lying around. She even found her copy of Hogwarts:A Historyunder her bed the other day.
"My Divination textbook, I haven't done my homework and we have it today before lunch!" she cried desperately. Leah felt for her wand on the bedside table and picked it up.
"Accio Divination book," she mumbled and a book flew over to her. She looked at the cover and read it.
"Found it," she said, holding it up and letting Ellie take it, shoving it into her bag. They both got dressed and packed their bags before heading down to the Great Hall for breakfast. As they passed through the common room they spotted Harry and Ron by the fireplace, madly rushing to finish their homework too. The sun shone through the window, onto their work, highlighting how much they had left. They continued down the corridor and several floors when they could see Malfoy strutting along the corridor in the Entry Hall with Crabbe and Goyle lurking behind him. He turned swiftly and entered the hall, narrowly missing bumping into people as he charged over to the slytherin table and sat down.
Ellie pretended to be him, strutting her worst as Leah laughed behind her. They entered the hall which was filled with the sound of students talking loudly and cutlery clanging constantly. Up above, an owl entered through the topmost window, and at least a hundred or so followed it, all carrying mail and parcels. Leah had just sat down when Baltimore, her owl swooped down in front of her and a few letters were placed on her empty plate. Ellie's owl Bernard, a barn owl, dropped the Daily Prophet right on top of her lap and shortly after they'd given them some food from the table, the owls flew off once again.
"Is there anything interesting in the paper?" Leah asked, helping herself to some bacon as Ellie skimmed the pages of the newspaper.
"Not today," she said, putting it aside and began eating. Leah picked a piece of toast from the floating plate it was on, hovering its way along the table and ate it hungrily. By quarter to nine the two best friends had finished breakfast and slowly wandered outside, enjoying the fresh sunlight that was coming over the top of the castle. Their first lesson of the day was Care of Magical Creatures, a double lesson with the slytherins, and Leah hated hearing Malfoy's rude remarks be spoken whenever Hagrid wasn't nearby.
The bell chimed, and students hurried off to their lessons. Ellie wanted to get to class quickly, as she rather enjoyed the topic they were studying at the moment - flobberworms. All they ate was lettuce, so when Hagrid told them to copy down some notes, they'd leave the flobberworms next to them with a bunch of lettuce leaves, so really they weren't doing much in that subject. Once all the students going to Care of Magical Creatures entered the courtyard, they all set off. The leaves crunched under the students' feet as they made their way to Hagrid's hut, showing that the weather was slowly turning to colder months. When they arrived, Malfoy took his usual spot at the back of the class so he could snigger at stupid things. Leah happened to be in front of him, and was fine until fifteen minutes into the lesson when she overheard him talking about Hermione.
"Will you shut it?" she hissed, half turning around to face him. He had a fake scared look on his face as the three of them (Crabbe and Goyle happened to be by his side as always) said, 'Ooohh'.
"Never thought you'd be one to stick up for Granger," Malfoy sneered, looking Leah straight in the eye.
"Thanks for the detention by the way. Only makes me hate you more," she replied and he rolled his eyes.
"No one hates me, they're just jealous," he smirked and Leah, fed up, moved down the front near Harry. When the bell chimed mid-morning, Leah dragged Ellie back up to the castle. Several owls were flying about, hooting, so it wasn't exactly quiet.
"Why are you in such a bad mood?" Ellie asked once they'd set first foot on the steps leading up to the castle.
"Malfoy," she replied.
"Don't worry about him. Here, this will make you feel better," she said, holding up a Chocolate Frog. Ellie was never without her Chocolate Frogs, and Leah always had this type of Muggle candy called Red Vines, which were red liquorice sticks and were her favourite lolly among the selection she always got from Hogsmeade.
"Thanks," she said, smiling as she took the frog. She ate it as they made their way up to the Divination room during their break. It usually took their entire break to get up to the classroom, which pleased no one. Lavender was right behind them, gossiping about the hufflepuff Seeker to Parvati. This time they were with ravenclaw, so Malfoy was far away, unable to pester Leah anymore. They tried to foresee the future in crystal balls, but all they could see when they looked into it were each other. Finally, it was time for lunch and Ellie helped herself to three whole chicken sandwiches and a goblet of pumpkin juice before starting on an apple. Leah was facing Malfoy, and they occasionally made eye contact, making Leah flare up everytime inside. Ellie was halfway through her apple when she saw Leah's face and turned to see Malfoy howl with laughter at a joke.
"Hey, ignore him, his sole purpose is to annoy others," she said, giving her a reassuring smile. They stowed a few sandwiches in their bags for the afternoon in case they got hungry before setting off to the grassy courtyard to enjoy the cool weather. The wind was breezy, ruffling through their hair and robes, taking a seat under a tree. Leah, bored and not wanting to revise work, pointed her wand at the ground, making the grass grow slowly as Ellie read her Potions textbook for that afternoons' lesson. The bell chimed and they went to Charms, where Professor Flitwick stood on a pile of books out the front. They took their seats and waited for Malfoy and his gang to stumble in, but no such thing happened. Not really of concern to Leah or anyone else, the lesson continued on as per usual. Today they were learning the spell that allowed them to use water to put out flames or water something.
"Agua-men-ti," said Flitwick slowly, making sure everyone knew it. Because it involved water, each student had a sink in front of them, somehow magicked in preparation of the lesson. It was a rather easy spell, as everyone shot some water out of their wands, some stronger than others but Leah and Ellie got the hang of it fast. Now they were busting to try it outside the classroom. They had a quick break before they had to go to Double Potions, so they pulled out a sandwich each and nibbled on them as they made their way to the dungeons. Malfoy was already there, surrounded by slytherins and wasn't being quiet either.
"Our next match is against gryffindor, and we're going to smash them." He was talking about quidditch, and Ellie tensed beside Leah.
"Not if I can help it," she said in a low voice as she made eye contact with the blonde haired menace. Professor Snape opened the door with a flick of his wand and the students flowed in behind him. Up on the board they saw that they'd be making a Pepperup Potion, used to rid one of the common cold. First, they had to take notes, and Leah, who couldn't be bothered to sit there and pay attention, bewitched her quill to write down the notes as Snape said them. This plan worked for around fifteen minutes, when he spotted Leah reading a book.
"Miller," he snapped and her head shot up to see several people looking at her, a few hoping she wouldn't lose any more house points. Malfoy was especially keen to see her get into trouble, his face visible above everyone else's.
"What did I just say?" he continued and she glanced down at her work to see what he had in fact said.
"That if the mixture's consistency isn't perfect, it won't work and the side effects can make the cold worse," she said and he scowled.
"Perhaps next time, you should listen rather than rely on your notes that you aren't even writing down." Her face went pink as he deducted five points. Ellie gave her a sympathetic look and Leah decided it would be best if she put her novel away. She still didn't pay attention though, staring at the board out the front of the room, pretending to listen as her quill continued to write for her. Soon they were getting the ingredients and setting up their cauldrons, ready to start. After the halftime chime rang, Snape went out the door, leaving the students unattended. The first thing Leah did was pick her wand up and aim it at Malfoy.
"Leah, not yet!" Ellie warned but Leah couldn't help herself.
"Aguamen-" Snape returned and saw Leah pointing her wand at Malfoy. She quickly dropped her wand onto the desk and turned the other way, stirring her potion. Just then, Neville's cauldron let off red smoke and there was a terrible smell. Hermione quickly cleaned it up before Snape could do anything and he kept a close eye on Leah for the remainder of the lesson. Surprisingly enough, she got an E on her potion. She was relieved when the bell chimed, as was everyone, quickly disappearing so they could go enjoy their free time and dinner. Ellie reached into her bag without looking in search of a Chocolate Frog to find she only had a few left.
"Leah, when are we next going to Hogsmeade?" she asked, panicked.
"This Saturday, why?"
"I need more frogs," she said and Leah smiled.
"Well you'll have to either wait longer or get someone else to get you some because that's when we have our detention with Snape." Ellie had a horrified look on her face as they made their way up to the Gryffindor common room.