A/N: Sorry this update took so long! Fanfiction is usually a procrastination tool, and now that I'm on summer holidays, I've just been lying in a big confusing pool of free time. Merry late Christmas!

The rest of the first week back at school passed by quickly, but uneventfully, and Friday afternoon found Jane pouring with sweat over a steaming cauldron in the dungeons. Maura was nearby, extracting the seeds of mistletoe berries and grating valerian root as Jane stirred feverishly counter clockwise.

Professor Bennett had ordered the Year 3 Potions class into pairs, and Jane, who had always partnered with Frost for their classes together, suddenly found herself alone as Anna sidled up next to him. That left her with Maura, who was looking at her with hopeful eyes. Being permanently partnered with Maura Isles for the year wasn't necessarily a bad option. Jane just felt a sudden rush of academic inadequacy. She wasn't terrible at lessons; in fact, she was among the top of the Gryffindors. But her talents in most areas of the classroom certainly paled in comparison to what she expected Maura's to be. The only subject she felt she might be Maura's equal in was Defence Against the Dark Arts.

Potions was like a cooking class, and Jane was certainly not renowned for her culinary prowess. Consequently, she had volunteered to do the stirring, which was required constantly for the Draught of Amnesia. That left Maura to prepare the ingredients, and as it transpired, the Ravenclaw had definitely got the better end of the deal. Their potion was giving off a thick, hot, emerald green smoke right into Jane's face.

'Is it bubbling yet?' The smoke was so thick Maura sounded far away, though she was no more than a foot from Jane. 'We need to add the valerian once it's been bubbling for ten minutes.'

'Bubbling? How should I know?' Jane had to shout to hear herself speak. 'I can't see a thing!'

'Oh dear,' Maura stared at her immaculately prepared ingredients forlornly. 'Professor Bennett did say this would be difficult.'

'I did say that,' Professor Bennett walked calmly through the dungeon, which was on the brink of erupting into frustrated chaos. 'The Forgetfulness Potion you learnt in your first year was simple. This potion is much stronger; it causes both retrograde and anterograde amnesia, and thus is significantly trickier. When brewed flawlessly, it can exert its effects for up to six full moons, though that is desperately difficult to do. If any of you do manage to make the Draught correctly, I would not expect its effects to last any longer than sunup to sundown.'

'Don't you know some kind of fancy spell to clear the smoke?' Jane asked Maura, coughing. 'And does it matter if I drip sweat in the cauldron?'

'I do know a smoke dissolving spell,' Maura admitted. 'However, I recall reading that for some potions that let off a thick smoke like this, it's vital not to tamper with it, since it helps keep the cauldron's heat. And I don't think some sodium chloride will change the potion's intrinsic properties. Perspire away!'

'Frost!' Jane hollered the moment Maura paused to take a breath. 'You add your valerian root yet?'

'Just about to,' he replied.

'Good enough for me,' Jane shrugged, and stepped back from the smoke long enough to seize the bowl of grated valerian root.

Maura gasped as Jane tossed the root into their brew, but quickly consulted their instructions. 'Stir seven times clockwise, Jane! It should turn a sapphire blue…'

'Like this?' Jane soon detected a new smoky hue circling her head.

'Yes!' Jane could hear the delight in Maura's voice, and smiled to herself in her smoke cloud. 'Now, anticlockwise again, and I need to add a mistletoe berry seed every two rotations.'

And so it went on, their potion turning every colour of the rainbow, before permanently changing to an impenetrable inky black. They doused the fire beneath their cauldron, and slowly the smoke cleared. Jane's face was bright red, dripping with sweat, and her hair had doubled in volume. Her white blouse was damp with perspiration, she had tossed her vest aside long before the valerian root addition, and her Gryffindor tie lay loose around her neck. Most of the class looked in no better shape. Students were draped over chairs all over the dungeon, looking as though they were suffering from heat stroke.

'I hate Potions,' Jane grumbled. 'Sorry if I screwed up our Draught of Amnesia,' she glanced at Maura, who was looking remarkably put together compared to the rest of the class. 'I couldn't see my hand in front of my face in there.'

'No, Jane, you did excellently!' Maura began to gush, but was interrupted by their Professor.

'Your Draughts of Amnesia should be a very deep midnight blue, almost black,' he began. 'If it is black, Maura and Jane, Seraphina and Michael, then your valerian root was grated too finely. Not a fatal error, but your Draughts will be significantly less potent, and not reliable. If your potion is still a sapphire blue, Joseph and Darren, Phoenix and Oliver, Vivienne and Arwen, then your mistletoe berry seeds still had flesh on them, and your brews will only work on very weak individuals. If your potion is yellow, Tobin and Bianca, then you failed to complete your anticlockwise stirring on the final rotation, and it is useless, though you weren't too far off the money. The rest of you have failed to complete a number of steps correctly, and I will require seven inches of parchment from you on the discovery and famous uses of the Draught of Amnesia, to be submitted next Tuesday. Clean up, and then you are dismissed.'

'Thank Merlin that's over,' Jane sighed in relief as they climbed the stairs from the dungeon. 'Now I can rest up for Quidditch trials tomorrow.'

'What position do you play?' Maura asked in a tone that immediately gave away the fact she knew almost nothing about the sport.

'Beater,' Jane answered, looking at Maura for any sign of recognition in her face. As she had suspected, there was none. 'You don't have the first clue about Quidditch, do you, brainiac?'

'I know it's played on broomsticks,' Maura volunteered. 'Though I'll admit, I've never seen a game myself.'

'Are you serious?' Frost asked incredulously. 'You've never seen a game of Quidditch? Not even in America?'

'No,' Maura answered simply. 'It was very nice on game days at the Fort, actually, because I had the library all to myself.'

Jane laughed hard at that, though not cruelly. She had only known the new girl a week, but she already recognised that a sentence like that was so quintessentially Maura. She knew of people who didn't care much for Quidditch, of course, but she had never, ever, heard of a person her age who had never even seen a game.

'Rizzoli,' a voice Maura had come to recognise as Darren Crowe's came from behind them. 'Me and Joey are going to go cool off in the Lake. Wanna come?'

'Sounds damn good to me. Frost?'

'Nah, I'm going to go and do that composition for Potions now. My whole weekend's going to be used up on Arithmancy. I'll catch you at dinner.'

'Alright, I'll see you later,' Jane farewelled him as they parted ways. 'Coming, Maura?'

'Yes, I think I will,' she replied thoughtfully. 'Some additional cholecalciferol certainly wouldn't go astray.'

No more than ten minutes later, Maura found herself sat on a rock in the sun with her bare feet in the water; Prolegomenon to Alchemy open on her lap. Discarded items of Jane's clothing lay carelessly about the lawn as she had quickly stripped off as much as she dared in public. Jane had made a running, and quite graceful, dive off the quay wearing only her pleated skirt and a spaghetti strap singlet, surfacing to give Maura a grin and show her that the humidity's effect on her hair had been successfully reversed.

Joey and Darren were already in the water, evidently in nothing more than boxer briefs, judging by their many articles of clothing strewn haphazardly across the lawn.

'Are you allowed to go swimming in your uniform?' Maura asked Jane, surprised.

'Nope,' Jane lay on her back, treading water with a very content look on her face. 'Sure you don't want to come in?'

'Quite sure,' Maura smiled, paddling her feet a little in the cool water, and kicking a cheeky splash at Jane's face. 'They're waiting for you,' she pointed a little further out, where the boys were holding an old quaffle to toss around.

'Enjoy your Alchemy,' Jane said in a teasing tone that indicated she didn't believe such an activity actually existed. She flipped onto her stomach, and with powerful strokes that immediately won Maura's attention, freestyled with ease to the deeper water where her fellow Gryffindors swam.

The trio organised themselves into a triangular formation and threw the quaffle back and forth, having to dive for it when it missed its mark and threatened to sink beyond retrieval.

Maura abandoned her textbook for a short while to watch the Gryffindors bask in the sun; laughing and shouting and splashing. Joey was attempting to lob the quaffle using only his feet, which so far was at a 0% success rate. She heard Darren announce a new "left hand only" rule, and chuckled quietly to herself, knowing he had forgotten that would be to Jane's advantage. Not a full week had yet passed since she'd first set foot on the school grounds, but Maura was already quite confident that she was enjoying Hogwarts infinitely more than Fort Acton. A few times, when she was trapped in the blistering afternoon heat, she had missed the shade of a leafy canopy, though having a friend more than made up for that temporary drawback.

She had sat with Jane, Frost, and Anna for all her meals that week, and had been utterly delighted this very morning to find Jane waiting for her on the main staircases to walk with her to breakfast. Apart from the Start of Term Feast, Maura had yet to see Jane take a meal at the Gryffindor table. She had also gathered from Jane's involuntary intermittent scowls that Anna was, like her, a new addition to the group, and not entirely approved of. She had worried at first that Jane didn't really want her there, either. When she voiced this concern to Frost one evening in the Ravenclaw common room, he had said that if Jane didn't like you, you'd know about it. The tricky part was finding out if she was indifferent to you, or really liked you.

'And she likes you,' he had assured her. 'I've known her for two years; I can tell.'

'She… likes me?' Maura asked cautiously.

'Yeah…' Frost frowned. 'Like, she thinks you're cool? She wants to be your friend.'

'Oh, yes,' Maura had quickly repositioned herself in her armchair and given a rapid, understanding nod. 'I like her, too.'

Her reverie was cut short as a piercing scream came from the Lake. Maura looked out with immediate concern, but found Jane and Darren to be roaring with laughter. Joey had been hoisted out of the water by an enormous tentacle, and she quickly realised that it must belong to the friendly Giant Squid she'd heard about. The squid took the quaffle from Joey with another tentacle and then dropped him back into the Lake with a plop. Maura watched as the squid played with them for a while, catching the oddly shaped ball with surprising deftness. Apparently it quite liked the new toy though, because it took a sudden dive with the quaffle in tentacle, and failed to resurface.

A collective groan was heard, and before long Maura could see Jane idly backstroking her way to shore.

'Hey,' Jane greeted a little breathlessly, clambering onto the quay and rapidly making a puddle of lake water from her sodden hair and uniform.

'I never expected you to be a coloured bra kind of girl,' Maura tried to remark objectively, but a rogue giggle betrayed her.

'What?' Jane glanced quickly down at her front, and found her white singlet was most definitely see-through when wet. 'Oh,' she crossed her arms over her chest with a scowl. 'Ma.'

'Your mother?'

'She keeps buying me colourful bras with like, lace and crap. She thinks they'll make me feminine, and come in handy if I meet "any nice boys",' Jane gave her biggest eye roll yet and Maura laughed in delight. 'They're useless for Quidditch, and hello, Ma. When is anyone going to see my bra? This time doesn't count, by the way! I suppose you're way into frilly stuff like that?'

'Well, practicality is an important factor of course, but, yes, I would class myself as appreciative of lingerie.'

'Okay, let me guess,' Jane chuckled. 'Your bra today is at least… 70% lace, and it's… purple!'

'Periwinkle blue, actually,' Maura grinned wickedly, peeking beneath her blouse. 'And only about… 45% lace today, I'm afraid.'

'Close,' Jane shrugged with a smile. 'Hey, can you summon my wand and help me dry me off? I'm bound to get a detention if I drip water all through the castle.'

'Accio wand,' Maura immediately pointed her wand in the general direction of the lawn, and a long, dark object came flying out from a side pocket of Jane's schoolbag. 'Oh, Jane,' she exclaimed, catching the wand and examining it with clear appreciation. 'This is beautiful! What is it, black walnut?'

'Black walnut, phoenix feather core, twelve inches, slightly yielding,' Jane recited, nodding. 'You really like it? I kind of hated it when I first got it. Ollivander reckoned it would be hard to master, and it gave me a lot of trouble in my first year. It's grown on me, though,' she shrugged. 'We're doing a lot better.'

'I do like it, this wood is incredibly handsome,' Maura gushed. Jane's wand was a rich, dark chocolate brown. The handle was not much wider than the shaft, but it was sculpted into a very intricate, angular design that was surprisingly smooth to the touch. 'Black walnut is very attuned to honesty, and my father thought I might be destined for one, since I can't lie.'

'What do you mean you can't lie?' Jane snorted, taking her wand from Maura. 'You mean you don't like to lie?'

'I mean if I knowingly tell a lie, I'm liable to go vasovagal.'

'Vaso what?'

'Vasovagal; become nauseous and faint. At the very least, I break out in hives.'

'You're joking,' Jane stated disbelievingly. 'I'm 98% sure that isn't a thing.'

'I'm not joking!' Maura protested. 'My very first week at Fort Acton, I got so involved in a book my father had gifted me that was questioning the validity of Phyllida Spore's groundbreaking Herbology experiment methods that I forgot to complete my History of Magic homework. I lied to my Professor and told her I had left it in my dormitory, then immediately fainted, hit my head on the stone floor, and woke up in the Hospital Wing.'

'I kind of want to see you tell a lie now,' Jane cracked a grin. 'But your wand isn't black walnut; it's a really light colour.'

'Acacia,' Maura turned her own wand over in her hands. 'Dragon heartstring core, ten and a quarter inches, slightly springy. It's a rarer wood, and Ollivander warned me it has a peculiar temperament.'

'How d'you mean?'

'It's not very fond of performing common magic. I find myself having to constantly practice more complicated spells to keep it happy, though I'll admit, I do seem to have an easier time mastering advanced magic than most others.'

'And, wait, you got your wand from Ollivander's? You were in the States when you turned eleven.'

'My mother insisted. She's English, you know, and she got her wand from Diagon Alley. She whisked me off to England the summer before I started school, saying there was no finer wandmaker in the world. There are some very accomplished wand artisans in America, of course, though I did notice a vast number of American-made wands lacked the subtlety of those I tried in Ollivander's.'

'Yikes,' Jane's eyebrows shot up, peering at Maura's wand. 'If that's subtle, I can't imagine what they're carrying around over there.' Maura's wand was covered in small woven designs carved very shallowly into the wood from handle to tip that you didn't notice at first glance. Not an inch was smooth, though there was a small concave notch just below the handle.

Maura caught Jane looking at it with interest. 'For my index finger,' she explained. 'It likes to be held the same way each time.'

'That is a weird wand,' Jane agreed. 'Cool, though. Are you going to help dry me off? I'll do the front, you do the back?'

'Ventus duo,' Maura immediately pointed her wand at Jane, and took great pleasure in blasting air all over her new friend.

'Is that how you get hot air?' Jane asked in sudden excitement. 'The duo bit? I can only ever get lukewarm air from my wand.'

'Yes, though you need to alter your wrist movement slightly from the standard ventus jinx. How ever do you manage to dry your hair after a shower with lukewarm air?'

'I don't dry my hair!' Jane turned around and scoffed as though the idea was ludicrous. 'Who has time for that? I run a towel over it. And sometimes I brush it,' she added as an afterthought.

Maura shook her head disbelievingly. 'I have never met anyone quite like you, Jane.'

'Like what? I know loads of girls who don't bother to blow dry their hair! Though it's understandable if you never kept them in your circles.'

Maura almost let out an incredulous laugh. She'd never had circles. 'No, not that! You're just so…' Effortlessly attractive. 'Carefree. It's a rare thing that a teenage girl genuinely isn't concerned about what other people think of her, and from my observations, you seem to embody that. It's refreshing. I think I'm a little envious.'

'Oh,' Jane said simply, surprised that Maura was speaking this earnestly so early on in their friendship. 'Thanks, I guess.'

'You're welcome,' Maura smiled brightly, and lowered her wand. 'Is that better? Are you sufficiently dry to enter the castle?'

'Yeah, that's great!' Jane gave herself a quick pat, checking for damp spots that might drip. Finding none, she shouldered her backpack and went about collecting her clothing. 'What are your plans for the rest of the afternoon?'

'Oh, I expect I'll read a few more chapters of my Alchemy textbook,' Maura replied as they headed towards the castle. 'It's quite fascinating.'

'Don't you have a bunch of Arithmancy homework? Frost said he's going to be swamped all weekend.'

'I read ahead, and finished most of it on Wednesday evening,' Maura explained. 'I'll complete the last section tomorrow morning. And yourself? How will you spend your afternoon?'

'Might do some Quidditch practice, though I've got a few chapter summaries for Muggle Studies to complete.'

'How long after trials will you find out if you made the team?'

'Dunno. Probably within a week. Hey, if I make it, do you promise to come to my first game? I can't believe you've never seen Quidditch.'

'Yes, I promise,' Maura laughed. 'It's not as though I've avoided it on purpose, I just-'

She was cut short as Professor Korsak called her name. He was heading out of the castle, and met them in the Entrance Hall.

'I'm glad I caught you,' the teacher said cheerfully. 'I'm just on my way to Hogsmeade to see if I can't find a hinkypunk for your class next week. And I need to pick up some more owl treats. Late night shopping on Fridays, you know.'

'Could you pick me up some black ink while you're there?' Jane joked to her favourite Professor. 'I accidentally packed Ma's ink into my trunk, and I've been writing notes in purple all week.'

'I'll see what I can do,' Korsak's eyes twinkled. 'I meant to tell you, Maura, your pet's been given the all-clear this morning, and if it works for you, I can meet you after supper and we can finalise his living arrangements?'

'Yes, thank you, Sir,' Maura beamed, and Jane noticed a bounce in her step after Professor Korsak had left them.

'What kinda pet do you have?' Jane asked curiously. Cats and owls and toads didn't require special attention from teachers.

'Geochelone sulcata,' Maura replied proudly. 'An African spurred tortoise. He isn't really supposed to be here, but Professor Korsak is letting me keep him.'

'He's got a huge soft spot for animals,' Jane nodded. 'I have no idea what an African… spud… turtle is though. Can I see him?'

'Spurred tortoise,' Maura corrected. 'And yes, of course. I do hope he's alright; I haven't seen him since Monday evening.'

'Is he magical?'

'No, no, nothing like that. He was a gift, actually, from a childhood Muggle friend. His father was a zoologist, and sourced one for me when I was nine.'

Jane furrowed her eyebrows, unable to shake the image of a turtle wearing spurred cowboy boots from her mind.

'I'm going to stop by the library to see if I can find anything on Paracelsus,' Maura informed her. 'I hope your Quidditch practice goes well!'

A quarter of an hour found Jane making her way back out the main doors, this time garbed in Quidditch essentials: fingerless gloves, arm guards, and shin guards. One hand was occupied by her Cleansweep Twelve, the other by her Beater's bat. She made a quick detour via the Quidditch equipment shed to pick up a couple of bludgers, then made a beeline for the Quidditch pitch. She was surprised to find it empty, though she supposed the older students were still in class and the younger students had little reason to be out here. In addition, the sun seemed to be encouraging students to seek shade: it was far too hot for most to even contemplate getting covered in sweat.

'I might be taking another dip in the Lake soon,' Jane thought, already starting to feel sticky under her heavy protective gear.

She dumped the bludgers and her Beater's bat by a goal post, and did a few practice circuits of the pitch to warm up. It felt incredible to be back on a broom, though it had been less than a week since she'd last flown. She kicked off the ground as hard as she could, and soared into the sky. She started with three laps of the pitch, just to feel the wind in her hair, and it was glorious. Her mother wouldn't let her fly too high at home, in case a Muggle caught sight of her, but here at Hogwarts, she could fly as high as she liked. The goal posts were around fifty feet high, which was where most of the Beating play was centred, but now she flew up to a hundred, a hundred and fifty, two hundred feet, and higher still, until the pitch began to resemble a small scale model.

The extreme height didn't scare her; her father often joked that she'd tried to ride a broom before she could even walk properly, and indeed sometimes flying did feel more natural than walking. She was sure of her broom, and knew it wouldn't falter, even this high in the sky. She sometimes felt that brooms could sense the confidence of their riders, not dissimilar to animals sensing fear. But she and her Cleansweep Twelve had spent hundreds of hours together, and she liked to think they had established a good rapport. She took a sudden dive then, plummeting back towards solid ground. She urged her broom faster and faster, until it was only just within the limits of her control. To an onlooker, it would have appeared that Jane was about to have a very ugly meeting with the ground, but she pulled up just at the last second, and cut through the air sideways to decelerate. It wouldn't have been a shabby Wronski Feint if she'd been a Seeker, but she liked the dual attack-defence requirement of Beating, and was unwilling to change position. Besides, her Quidditch hero, Gwenog Jones, Captain of the Holyhead Harpies in the late '80s and '90s had been a Beater, and Jane had a not-so-secret fantasy of following in her footsteps.

Her fun over, she prepared to start her Beating practice drills. Beating was difficult, because you never had both hands on your broom, and most of the time you had neither, relying solely on your inner thigh muscles and your balance to stay upright. Therefore, any practice she did had to be while she was holding her bat. She collected the item, and practiced balance and agility with one hand; zigzagging, diving, dodging, changing direction. She didn't have a typical Beater's build, which was burly and quite visibly muscular. Historically, most Beaters were men, because of their superior build, but Jane had deceivingly strong upper body strength, and could hit a bludger three times further than you'd think.

When she was satisfied her core skills were up to scratch, she added a bludger into the mix, and later, a second. With two bludgers, she was essentially doing the work of two Beaters, and a rock hard ball of iron was flying at her at least every five seconds. Why weren't Beaters legally required to wear protective headgear, again? All summer she had been trying to perfect one of her favourite Beating tactics: the Bludger Backbeat, where she would hit the ball with a backhanded swing to confuse the opposing players. Her Ma had banned her from using this move when she had shattered the kitchen window seven times in one afternoon, and nearly knocked out Tommy. She tried the move now, and found her accuracy had only declined slightly from the lack of practice. Nevertheless, she continued Bludger Backbeating for a full forty minutes before deciding to call it quits.

By now she almost looked like she had taken a second dip in the Lake she was so sweaty. It was almost dinnertime, and she decided to chance a quick trip past the Ravenclaw common room to see if Maura was there, and wanted to wait ten minutes or so while she showered to go down to the Great Hall. After returning the bludgers, she sped up to Ravenclaw Tower, and hovered outside the window, peering in. She couldn't see Maura in there, but Runa was sitting close to the window playing Exploding Snap with a younger boy. Jane liked Runa. Oftentimes she was comic relief during a boring class, and she was crass, but in a clever way that Jane quite admired. She tapped softly on the window, immediately getting Runa's attention.

'Jane,' she opened the window with a surprised smile. 'What brings you to Ravenclaw Tower on this fine summer evening?'

'I'm looking for Maura, actually,' Jane wiped her brow with her upper arm. 'Is she up here, or has she set up camp in the library?'

'Come to club her?' Runa eyed Jane's bat with faux suspicion.

'Not today,' Jane replied airily, as though bludgeoning people was a regular occurrence and Maura's turn would come soon enough. 'Though if she doesn't take her turn stirring the next time we create a hellfire in our cauldrons, I might move her further up the hit list.'

'Sounds reasonable to me,' Runa nodded. 'I'll go check if she's in the dorms.'

Jane was left temporarily with the young boy, who was staring at her in respectful awe.

'You fly?' she asked after a while, deciding they might as well make awkward conversation.

He shook his head. 'I'm Muggleborn. You can balance with only one hand!'

Jane laughed. 'I can do this with one hand, too,' and she proceeded to do a neat loop-the-loop on the spot, holding her Beater's bat out to the left as a centre point.

The boy looked as though he was about to burst into applause, and Runa's bubbling laugh spilled into the air. 'She's not bad, hey Jed?'

'She's wonderful!' he gushed.

'I wouldn't be too flattered, Jane, he almost wet himself over Exploding Snap, too,' she teased the first year. 'Quidditch trials tomorrow?'

'You betcha,' Jane nodded. 'Is Maura –'

'Coming. She was just in the loo. I interrupted her wee for you, you owe me one.'

Jane snorted. 'Duly noted.'

'You can repay me right now,' Runa returned to her seat and leaned toward the window eagerly. 'What's the scoop on Frost and Anna? She hasn't even dished to Sera, who would be feeling totally ditched right now if she and Michael hadn't started dating over the summer.'

'I reckon I know less than you do,' Jane's lip curled involuntarily. 'I don't even know how it happened. Or even if anything's happened. We rode the train together, and he didn't even mention her. Then on Monday morning they were all… giggly. It was gross. It's still gross, actually.'

'I hear ya, sister,' Runa sat back in her chair, looking disappointed. 'Ah well, I guess it'll all be out in the open when they start having babies.'

'Who's having babies?' Maura appeared in the common room.

'My parents are,' Jed volunteered. 'Well, only one, actually-'

'Jane!' Maura looked up in shock, seeing her friend hovering outside the window. 'What on earth are you doing out there?'

'I lost track of time while I was practicing my Bludger Backbeat and… well, never mind,' she suddenly realised the tactic would be totally lost on Maura. 'I was wondering if you wanted to wait like, fifteen minutes while I shower so I can go down to dinner with… I mean, so I don't have to go down to dinner by myself?'

'Yes, of course,' Maura nodded. 'I can get some Rune translations done while I wait. Elowyn and I have been discussing the introductory chapter of Rudimentary Runology, and it's absolutely intriguing!'

Jane laughed. She didn't quite share Maura's passion for academia, but her unbridled enthusiasm had begun to make Jane strangely happy.

'Great!' she beamed. 'I'll meet you on the stairs in a bit.' With a quick wave goodbye she flew up and over the castle to Gryffindor Tower, where she hoped to just fly through a common room window to save time.

'Who was that?' Jed asked Maura, still looking as though he had just discovered Peter Pan was a real person.

'Jane Rizzoli.'

'Is she your best friend?'

Could you call someone your best friend after knowing them for only five days? She supposed that 'best' didn't really come into it when you only had one friend. Though, she was beginning to form small bonds here and there with some of her housemates, and the Ravenclaw common room was even starting to feel almost… convivial. Jane might not consider Maura to be her best friend, but when it came down to it, Maura certainly classed Jane as hers. Nobody else had ever come to collect her for meals, or invited her on afternoon swims, or asked to see Bass. Jane even seemed to enjoy Maura's unrelenting nerdspeak.

'Yes,' she answered Jed, a smile spreading slowly across her face. 'She's my best friend.'

'Can you fly like she can?'

'Oh, definitely not,' Maura laughed. 'But… I think she likes me anyway.'