"Stupid, Stupid, Stupid!" Emily thought to herself as she walked out of the dining hall as fast as she could. Her face was burning crimson. She thought she could feel their laughing eyes on her. When she reached the large wooden door, she looked back just before she exited. They weren't looking at her. Somehow that made her feel even worse.

This was so typical. She was always doing stupid shit like that. Why couldn't she just think?

Sighing she forced herself up the wooden stair case, nearly landing on a trick step, to get to the Gryffindor portrait hole. She felt like burying her head in the sand but some pillows and sheets would do. It was on her way to the dormitories that she remembered: Detention with Flitwick.

"Fucking beautiful," she thought as retraced her steps back out the portrait whole and headed to Flitwick's office.

When she arrived, late as usual, Flitwick responded by giving her another detention.

"No excuses, Miss Irving," said Flitwick as she began her protest.

"But normally you don't mind!" Emily complained.

"Well take this to mean I've turned over a new leaf!" Flitwick replied. "Consistency of discipline. That's just what my classes need."

"Oh great," said Emily as she plopped herself down into a desk's chair. The boy who was now sitting next to her smiled.

"Now then," said Flitwick as he cleared his small, high pitched throat. "You shall be spending your time practicing the spells we learned today in class and you aren't allowed to leave until I see substantial improvement!"

"Oh my god," muttered Emily. "That could be an eternity."

"Off you go"

Emily, the boy, and two girls who had probably been assigned detention for talking too much and had still not gotten the message slowly began practicing their charms. The boy was doing a charm Emily had learned last year so he must be a third year. The other girls were preforming spells she'd never even heard of so she figured they must be sixth or seventh. Plus, they all looked their age.

"Brilliant deductions," she thought to herself. She was just so down on herself. She really had thought it was going to go well. How? She didn't even know. She didn't want to think about it. She also didn't want to do charms either. She didn't want to do anything except go to bed early.

"So, what is your spell supposed to do?" the boy said.

"Huh? Oh" said Emily being pulled out of her thoughts.

"You know the spell you've been mumming. Stoop- what?"

"Oh um yeah it's uh Fortuna memoria actually."

"Oh what's it do?"

"It enables something to be stuck in your memory forever."

"Wow! Cool!"

"Yeah it's really useful. It's also hard as hhhheck."

He turned his head to see her staring at Flitwick. Understanding her choice of words, he smiled.

"I'm Eric," He said, extending a hand to shake. Emily took it, shook it and assessed that his handshake was a little on the weak side but overall ok.

"I'm a third year Hufflepuff," Eric said.

"Yeah, I figured from your spell and your badge," Emily smiled.

"Oh yeah." He laughs.

*Note: I realize I had forgotten about the badges in the earlier chapters. Thanks to the reviewer who reminded me of this. : ) Onward . . .*

"So what's your name?" Eric said

"Oh right. I'm Emily," she replied.

"Got any tips for me? I'm practicing the congelato spell."

"Well I guess for me what helped was visualization of where you wanted it to stay frozen in space. Like here- with this book as an example . . ."

Their conversation gradually left the subject of charms and moved on to other more random and amusing topics, cheering Emily up until she forgot all about, well mostly about, the unfortunate incident. After a 40 minutes they realized Flitwick had left the room. They laughed at this. "So much for consistent discipline," said Emily as she stuffed scrolls into her bag. "I'm getting out while I can. So long suckas," she said to the girls who didn't seem to notice as they continued to chat incessantly.

Emily was out in the hall heading towards her common room when she heard behind her when she heard Eric's voice: "So when can I see you again?"

She turned around. "Oh I'm sure I'll see you around. Flitwick's office is a pretty popular spot for me."

"Do you wanna eat lunch together sometime?"

"We're in separate houses. . ." said Emily hesitantly.

"Yeah but the professors never seem to care."

"Well um sure I guess."

"Alright. See you tomorrow at lunch," he said smiling and turned heading off in the opposite direction.

Emily started after him a moment and then started heading to Gryffindor tower, slightly slower this time. She had just made a friend she told herself. He just wanted to be her friend. She hoped nothing more.