Cyn sighed, resting her head on the table in the Great Hall. It was mealtime, and she had spent the majority of the meal struggling with Ancient Runes. At Ilvermorny she had understood it – with the help of a tutor – but here, it was infinitely more difficult. For the life of her, Cyn couldn't understand why! Ancient Runes was Ancient Runes no matter where you went to school, but she was still struggling. The scent of perfume invaded her nostrils and Cyn looked to the left, smiling a little when she saw that Verity had taken a seat next to her.

"You're doing it wrong," Verity announced, grabbing Cyn's parchment and scribbling out her answers. "Honestly didn't you read Magical Hieroglyphs and Logograms or Advanced Rune Translation? That's the Unknown Symbol, which means seven but you put three. Three looks like a Runespoor. When you took the Ancient Runes O.W.L. what'd you get?"

"Exceeds Expectations," Cyn answered after a moment of hesitation.

"Really?" Verity looked a little surprised. "But you're struggling with even the basic of concepts; whatever it's not my business just fix it!"

Cyn slowly took the parchment from her, and slowly began filling in the answers. She glanced at Verity every now and then who was watching her closely. After a few minutes of filling in answers, Verity snatched the parchment from Cyn, reading it over with a critical eye.

"Much better." Verity sniffed, handing it back to Cyn. "I'll help you with it later." She grabbed a brownie from the plate just before all of the food disappeared. "Where's Draco?"

Cyn shrugged, shoving the parchment into her Ancient Runes textbook. "Probably off with Blaise somewhere. Or Crabbe and Goyle." Cyn finally answered, stuffing her Ancient Runes things into her messenger bag. "Hey, the night of the Sorting, Draco was there but he didn't get off the train with us. What do you think happened?"

Verity smiled. "I don't know but whatever happened, Potter earned a bloody nose from it."

"Interesting," Cyn mused.

Neris swooped down from the sky, dropping a letter in front of Cyn. She picked it, staring at the paper intently.

Dear Cynthia Elysia Winters,

Good evening. Or will it be morning by the time this letter reaches you? You know what, it doesn't matter. How are you, Cyn? (In case you couldn't guess this is Farrah and Kyra writing to you). Ilvermorny has just started back up again, and a lot of this have happened so far. Firstly, Kyra has a boyfriend in the form of Grayson Braithmore. We both know what you're thinking, "He's a bad influence" – and you're right he is, or rather was. Since dating Kyra he's seemed to change a little. One would have thought that he would have matured last year, when he was a sixth year but he hadn't – somehow though, meeting Kyra changed that.

Second, Kyra is playing Quidditch which you could have guessed but she's also become Quidditch Captain and trials for Horned Serpent are starting tomorrow. We've had some great third years express interest in Quidditch including Lyric Wolf, Brynn Braithmore, and Sarah Chambers (a muggle-born). Brynn is trying out for Seeker, and the other two are going to be Chasers. The only reason I'm talking about them is because, Kyra and I have kind of taken them under our wings so to speak. They are young, and they need someone to look up to – someone who is actually a good influence and Kyra and I fit the bill. Don't you remember when we were third years?

We had no one, until Freya Braithmore (why does Ilvermorny have so many Braithmores!?) took us under her wing and helped us to grow into the people that we are today. That's why Kyra and I have taken those three third years under our wings. But enough about that how is Hogwarts? Is it as terrible as you thought or is it absolutely wonderful? I need to know, and so does Kyra. Or she'd like to if she wasn't busy making out with Grayson every damn minute.

Write to me soon, I miss you Cyn.

Love your bestest friend in the whole wide world,

Farrah

Cyn smiled a little. The letter sounded exactly like Farrah – jumping from one idea to the next, and rambling just a little bit. Cyn tucked the letter into the pocket of her robes, deciding that she would write Farrah back later. She gathered her stuff, standing up and looked at Verity.

"Care to come with me to the library? Snape assigned us another essay, and I badly need to work on it." Cyn asked.

Verity frowned, standing up. "I have my first class with Snape tomorrow, and by that I mean the first dueling club. Could you help me with that first? I've never dueled before, and I don't want to make a huge fool of myself especially in front of a bunch of Gryffindor and Hufflepuff. I'm a Black and I'm a Slytherin – I have to be amazing in everything that I do."

"Because you're a pureblood," Cyn said as the two walked out of the Great Hall together. "I understand the pressure – Ilvermorny has a lot of pureblood families that go there. The Braithmores, Wolfs, and Winters to name a few. Because of the prestige attached to our names there is a lot of pressure to do well and to prove that it's not only our last name that makes us special."

Verity nodded. "Exactly! There's this exorbitant amount of pressure to do well and to do better than the Muggle-borns. There's just so much pressure to be the best." Verity yanked a door to an old classroom open and the two slipped inside. "But I've never been very good at Defense Against the Dark Arts, not like the stupid Gryffindors do."

"Well tomorrow you'll go in there and you'll outshine all of the Gryffindors and Hufflepuffs." Cyn smiled, slipping her wand into her hand. "First things first, get a master on nonverbal spellcasting. That's how I beat Granger and Weasley; and their reflexes are terrible. That's also something you'll have to work on. With dueling, it's best to just let your instincts guide you don't overthink it."

Verity nodded absorbing Cyn's words. Cyn twirled her wand in her hand, thinking about what she wanted to say next. She had never been good at teaching others to do things, and she was afraid that she wouldn't do a good job and then Verity would be humiliated. She sighed. Really the only way that Verity could get better at dueling was to practice it.

"Your best friend is always Protego, the shield spell." Cyn said and then launched a stunning spell at Verity who screeched, hurriedly getting her own wand out and casting the spell that Cyn had just mentioned. The Stupefy Cyn had cast rebounded and Cyn ducked to the side. The wall behind Cyn cracked. "See?"

"What the bloody hell was that!?" Verity screeched, staring at Cyn like she had two heads.

"Teaching you how to duel. Your opponent won't tell you when they are going to cast a spell, they'll just do it and experienced duelers won't verbalize their spells, they'll just think them." Cyn told her.

"Okay I guess that makes sense," Verity grudgingly admitted.

Cyn just smiled and cast another spell at Verity. The two dueled back and forth for what felt like hours – but in reality it was only a few minutes. They stopped, took a breather and then started to duel again. With each minute that passed Cyn could see that Verity was greatly improving. Cyn cast one last spell at Verity who ducked, letting it smash into the wall behind her. She grinned, tucking her wand back into the sleeves of her robes.

"Good job Verity," Cyn told the panting witch. "You've improved just a little bit."

Verity scowled, but couldn't hide the prideful smile from Cyn. The elder witch stooped down grabbing her messenger bag from the floor and followed Verity out of the abandoned – and now ruined – classroom.

"So Hogsmeade is tomorrow right?" Cyn asked once they arrived in the Slytherin Common Room.

"Yeah," Verity answered after a beat of silence. "Have you ever been?" Cyn gave her a flat look. "Right stupid question, you just started living in England. Are you excited to go then?"

"Kind of," Cyn hedged. "In America everything is big, and embellished. It's very…loud and in your face. From what I've heard Hogsmeade sounds more quaint."

Verity nodded excitedly. "Trust me it is. You'll love it; we should go to Honeydukes first thing. I am in serious need of Chocolate Frogs." She looked at Cyn, "You have had those right?"

"Of course," Cyn answered looking affronted.

"Just checking," Verity raised her hands in defense. "Parseltongue," Verity said to the door emblazoned with a snake.

It swung open revealing the Slytherin Common Room which lay beneath the Black Lake. The Common Room was full of bright emerald greens and more muted shades of the green, with a healthy amount of black decorating the room as well. In the center of the room there were a multitude of couches and chairs – the other Houses didn't know it but the Slytherins had the largest Common Room. Verity and Cyn headed over to one of the couches; with Verity practically face planting into the couch once she was close enough.

Cyn dropped her satchel, sitting more elegantly on the couch than Verity had.

"Where were you two? It's almost curfew," A familiar voice drawled into Cyn's ear.

She jumped and turned around, to see Draco's silver eyes staring back at her curiosity glimmering. "We were," Cyn fumbled for an excuse, "studying. She needs help with Potions and I need help with Transfiguration."

"Liar. Potions is Verity's best subject," Draco answered.

Cyn huffed, "None of your business then."

After a few minutes Cyn headed up to the girl's dormitory, changed into her night clothes and curled up on her bed. I could get used to this, Cyn thought happily falling asleep with a smile on her face.