18 February 1992

There was no meeting the next week as Professor Sprout wanted to give them some time off talking. Therefore, all the members of the group took some time to themselves. As it was a rainy day, this involved them all spending time in the library reading about their particular interests. They had all arrived just a few minutes after lunch had started, having all grabbed a few things from the great hall and eaten them on their way. Following this, they had all arrived at the library at about the same time. As though they had barely even thought about it, they ended up all sitting at the same table at the library. The library was quite busy as it was full of busy students from the upper years in a state of constant anxiety. Percy Weasley had an entire table covered with materials and he and other students appeared to be quizzing one another. All the other students could only be described to be studying violently which was quite a sight to behold. The lunch club, who were all engrossed in books about their respective interests were quite calm in comparison. Fortunately, due to the status of the library, four students from different houses were not really an odd sight. There was nowhere free to sit, so it was frankly a matter of conserving space.

Therefore, it was the following week that Professor Sprout once again got her group together. For the first time, upon coming into the room, they did not do it in complete silence. The conversation was clearly awkward, but it was lovely to see that they were talking to one another unprompted.

"This week, I was thinking we could do something fun," she said brightly. "Since we are back to where we started, as Cho was the one to talk the first time we had a meeting like this, we will be doing what Cho likes to do for fun."

"Well we can't do anything to do with astronomy as it's day…" Cho began.

"Well let me stop you right there," Professor Sprout said, getting up and brushing crumbs off her lap, "If it is the fact that it is day is stopping you, let it stop you no longer. What do you like to do with stars that is fun?"

"Well other than stargazing, which is not so much of a group activity, I like to take star charts and turn them into drawings."

"You like to draw?" Neville asked inquisitively.

"Yes, I really do. I used to draw things that I saw, but after a while I realised that I am too much of a perfectionist and nothing is never good enough for me, so instead I draw from my imagination."

"I like to draw plants, but it always makes me stressed because I have no talent whatsoever."

"I am the same," Addie admitted. "I have never held a pen or pencil correctly, so nothing is accurate and everything is smudged."

"I have never tried drawing before. My parents tried to get me lessons but…"

"But what?"

"When I first met my drawing master, I didn't like him and ignored him. When he tried to make me talk to him, I bit him." Everyone looked at him in slight fear. "I was five," he clarified. "Later, it was revealed that he had stolen heirlooms, so I stand by it. I'd be willing to try if the rest of you were."

"Why don't we all go to the art room and see if any art supplies were left there."

"Art room?"

"There's an art room at Hogwarts?"

The room became loud – well very slightly louder – for a moment due to everyone's surprise. Professor Sprout metaphorically rubbed her hands together in glee. This was working much better than she had anticipated.

"Yes, it used to be where art lessons were taught, but it has been abandoned since it was abolished in the 1950s along with Grammar, French, German and Numeracy."

She let that sink in for a moment while they all walked along the corridor and up the stairs, then behind a tapestry then ducked under a beam, and through a door. There they found themselves in a fairly dark room that on first appearance looked entirely unsuitable for arts and crafts. With a wave of her wand, the heavy curtains shook off their dust and opened revealing the room's bright interior and beautiful view. With another wave of her wand, all the dust in the room whirled in a circle before depositing itself in the bin in the corner. This second upheaval revealed further the artwork on the walls, some of it peeling due to expired sticking charms and, to Professor Sprout's delight, a wealth of art supplies. She gestured for them all to sit down on the wooden stools at one of the tables and they all did. She sat in the corner with some marking, and everyone got to work.

She kept one eye on her marking and one eye on her group, just to make sure everything was going smoothly, but she needn't have worried.

"Cho, please could you show us that spell you did to create a star chart again?"

"Oh of course Neville. It goes like this." Cho pointed her wand at a large piece of paper and demonstrated that it worked before helping Neville to get the wand motion correct as well as the incantation.

"Did anyone else draw more when they were little? I can't remember the last time I actually drew something other than a wand diagram," Adrian said as he concentrated on his picture.

"Oh, all the time," said Cho. "It doesn't seem to be a thing unless you are actually good at it when you get older."

"It's a shame," Addie said. "I didn't get to do that when I was a child."

"What, you didn't get to draw?" Cho asked confusedly. "Surely that's a universal experience?"

"My cousin had crayons and we weren't allowed to go near them. My aunt and uncle told my primary school that I would just make a mess so they didn't let me join in with arts and crafts."

Professor McGonagall had expressed her apprehension about leaving two magical children with a person who hated magic more than anything else, to Professor Sprout. Professor Sprout hadn't understood it at the time. Surely the Potter twins would be welcomed wherever they happened to end up? Surely one's deceased sister's son and daughter were worthy of love?

"Adelaide, what are you drawing?" Adrian, who was giving drawing a picture of a lynx, asked.

"Well I thought as Sirius is the dog star, I would draw a dog. I don't really know any dogs I like though – my cousin's Aunt Marge has some but they're scary – so I thought one up."

"Just don't let Professor Trelawney see it. She'll start spouting nonsense about the Grim."

"The Grim?"

"Folklore about a menacing big black dog with scary teeth, and you are destined to die or suffer terrible luck if you see it."

"Huh. I feel like I must have met one in the past then."

"Definitely not something to joke about when you are around others," Professor Sprout said suddenly, knowing that it could become messy quite quickly if any of them did so. "There are people, even in this castle, who would drag you upstairs and force you to look at charts and look into crystals until you were dizzy."

"I continue to be pleased that I did not end up choosing divination," Adrian admitted. "My parents always refer to it as 'a perfectly respectable thing to study, even though the teacher they have nowadays is a strange person' but I wanted to take arithmancy instead. Not because I'm particularly interested in arithmancy though. My reasons are more geographical."

"What do you mean?" asked Cho. "What was your complaint?"

"To get to divination, you have to walk and walk and walk until you get to a ladder that is apparently rather worse for wear, and then climb said ladder, and spend a large amount of time breathing in potentially hazardous gas."

"To think that you, a Quidditch player, turned down a chance to do additional exercise," Cho teased. "You had better hope that this doesn't end up getting back to your captain."

"Oh, he's alright," Adrian said. "He knows very well that none of us got in to Quidditch on account of us being good runners. Quidditch captains generally know to expect a Quidditch player on land to be like a fish out of water."

"I think I'll try out for my house's team next year," Cho said.

"Really? What position?" Adrian asked, clearly interested. "We could end up playing against each other."

"Well, I don't think that chaser is the position for me," she admitted. "I used to have to play netball at primary school, and people throwing things in my face, and me having to throw was really not my thing. I am a pretty good catcher though. I think I'll go for Seeker if I have the chance."

"Oh, are you any good?" Addie asked.

"I used to play a bit in Mini Flyers, in Aberdeen. It's the only city in Scotland to have its own team, and we won against Liverpool."

"I used to want to play Quidditch when I was younger," Neville said, "but my gran objected to it on a fundamental level. She said that when I was capable of running in a straight line, I would be allowed to get on a broom. That never happened. My first time on a broom and I was a laughingstock."

"I have to admit that I've never understood why our society does that to a large quantity of new students," Adrian said passionately. "A first year being able to get on a broom for the first time and do a perfect dive the first time he – sorry they – do is a fluke. Muggleborns and people who have never flown before have everything set up against them, and I think that it's unfair to make them have their first time riding a broom be in front of their peers."

"It's like when someone's first time riding a bike is at school and they are behind everyone else," Cho agreed. "We had to do bike proficiency at primary school, and it was a bloodbath. I had never ridden before, and I fell and got injured. The entire class laughed at me. It wasn't fair. This isn't fair."

"You're right about the luck thing," Addie said. "Remember what happened to me the first time I got on a broom. The dichotomy would have been amusing if I hadn't been too scared to let go of the broom."

Professor Sprout knew that it was probably unethical to get ideas from her students without them knowing, but wrote 'offer flying lessons in small groups to people who haven't flown before in the first weeks of term before initial flying lessons' on a scrap piece of parchment. She hadn't thought about it as being unfair before, but by the sounds of it, it was a considerable problem.

They drew in silence for a few more minutes.

"I think that I'm too literal for this," Addie commented, looking down at her drawing with a look of distaste on her face.

"Why? What else have you drawn?" Cho asked. She had already filled up most of her page, which made sense considering that she had more experience of it under her belt than the others.

"I have a scorpion for Scorpius, a lion for Leo, a Ford Orion for Orion…"

"A what?"

"A type of muggle car, Neville," Cho responded. "My aunt and uncle have one in the most boring shade of grey you could possibly imagine."

"You must be overestimating my imagination then. I don't think I even know what a car looks like."

"You could look at my picture, but I don't think it would help you at all. It looks more like a crocodile than a car."

Neville took a close look at her picture before exclaiming that he had had not known that that was what those creatures that the muggles went around in were called. Professor Sprout knew that he had been sheltered, but she had not known that it was to such an extent. Cho proclaimed it to be a tolerable likeness, "I would definitely have known it was a car," she said reassuringly.

"I don't think I have ever seen one of those before," Adrian admitted after also having a look at the picture. "We only really spend time at the estate and magic only communities." Him having been so sheltered was less of a surprise to Professor Sprout.

"My mum and I live in a normal muggle community in a normal muggle house. We shop in muggle shops and she used to pick up shifts in a normal muggle greengrocers when I was little."

"So you had eccletricity growing up? My gran says it's so dangerous that she doesn't know why the muggles try to copy magic so much."

"Neville, your Gran probably knows more about early electricity. Nowadays there are all sorts of safety measures like grounding and other building regulations. You are probably safe as long as you don't stick a fork in a plug socket or try and take a hairdryer into the shower."

"I am ashamed to admit that I have no idea what any of those words meant. All my parents have told me is that muggles are dangerous," Adrian admitted as he looked down at his drawing.

"Some are, some aren't," Addie said cryptically. "Unfortunately, you are quite likely to meet the bad ones, especially if you are trying to explore the muggle world under the cover of darkness."

At the end of the meeting, they all went back to Professor Sprout's office before going about their day. Cho went back to the Ravenclaw common room to pick up her books for her afternoon classes. Her dorm had always been a place where she had felt neither safe nor unsafe. She simply did not know them all well enough to have any impression of them in particular. They (minus Cho) were a close knit group and always had been, ever since first year.

When Cho had arrived at Hogwarts, she had had one friend. Marietta Edgecombe. Their mothers had worked together at the ministry along with Shauna's father Kingsley. The three of them had spent some time together before Hogwarts and had constantly been pushed together on play dates. She and Marietta had kept in touch throughout most of their childhood, but it had taken two weeks at Hogwarts for Cho to offend her, resulting in her going off to become best friends with Marlena, a muggleborn witch who regularly talked about how she had been fully prepared to go to Kilgraston, and had been delighted to learn that she was eligible to attend Wizard Eton. She insisted on people referring to her by her full name and title: The Honourable Marlena Mercedes Montgomery. She and Cho didn't have much in common, Marnie was always just a bit sweet when ever she talked to Cho, like she was talking to a child, and Shauna who flitted about a bit friendship wise and was well known in all the houses. Shauna was definitely the person in her dorm who she liked and trusted the most. She had never talked to her unkindly and did not seem to be superficially friendly, either. Cho had spent the intervening years in almost complete solitude, which was as she liked it. She had to admit, however, that it was nice to have people to talk to every week. Perhaps she had been lonelier than she had thought.

Upon entering the dorm, she was surprised to see that the four other girls in her dorm were sprawled on Marietta's bed looking at a magazine. It appeared to be the sort of magazine that one would find in a waiting room, with quizzes and what to wears enough to fill an entire book. Cho went to her bed and leant under it to get her books which she had stashed there. She had decided early on that if she did not have a specific space in which to put her belongings, they would end up all over the floor. She was not automatically a very put together person. She knew that outwardly she was neat enough (which was a difficult standard to achieve in Ravenclaw) but her personal space was more difficult to keep in order. Grabbing her Potions and Charms books she put them in her bag, slotting them in carefully so that they would not poke her in the back. She then swung her bag back on to her shoulders and went back to the door. From behind her she could hear giggling. She briefly looked back, and all of the other girls were staring at her. Marietta, Marnie and Marlena all giggled upon noticing that Cho had noticed them staring at her, while Shauna looked uncomfortable. After a moment of staring, Marlena said, "What do you think you're staring at?" and Cho fled. That was what life in her dorm was like. It was never unsafe, but it was always uncomfortable.

In moments such as these, she usually fled to the same place. The old library. She had initially planned on going to the main library to do some studying before the next period, but the other girls from her dorm had just made her feel sad. This was a situation in which having had a parent who had attended Hogwarts was beneficial. Her mum had been acquaintances with a girl called Lily, who had somehow known about many of the secret places in the school. Apparently, a boy who had liked her had kept on trying to impress her, and as a result had shown her many of these places. The library wasn't really a library by most people's standards. Cho knew of other Ravenclaws who had visited the room briefly upon arriving, presumably on the instructions of their parents, but they had shunned it in favour of the larger and far more impressive main library. This library had been abandoned after a better space for it had been found during a subsequent renovation. During this renovation, many things had been changed around. Due to the volume of incoming students due to the Statute of Secrecy, additional bathrooms and dormitories had been added. The library had been mostly abandoned except for by any students who happened to be loners.

Cho didn't spend much time there. It was better than the main library as it wasn't nearly as loud, and people tended to be less nosy, but it had its disadvantages. It was much smaller, the light was not as good, and you had to bring your own books, as there weren't many books in residence. Presumably, upon realising that students weren't spending much time there, all the most frequently used books had been moved to more fashionable digs. The library itself had a far better atmosphere than the main one, but that didn't stop it from being less convenient. The remnants of what must have been the constraints for some truly horrendous books were still evident. Steel chains covered the shelves on one wall. The bulk of the books that were there were history books that Cho had once tried to read but had been put to sleep by. She considered telling Addie about it so they could get some use but didn't feel like sharing the space at that moment. She sank down into a seat with a sigh. They weren't the most comfortable and had clearly not been replaced in quite some time, but they weren't what she had come for. The quiet was all she needed.

She looked along the shelves that had presumably housed the finest of Hogwarts' collection, but now existed in reduced circumstances. She perused the shelves – as she had done dozens of times previously – and found a book that she had also read many times previously but continued to be comforting to her. She opened the book and began reading about the stars of their skies and other skies in the universe, and every once and a while, she looked up at the stained glass on the ceiling as though she could see the stars above her, the stars that guided the sailors to safety, and smiled at the idea of them existing out there, completely undisturbed.