"That blow to the head was more severe than I thought".
She watched him go, his friends following after him almost jogging to catch up. Perhaps his irritation and his recent brush with danger would get him off her case.
She pushed her half eaten porridge away, getting up to head to her first class; potions. As she walked towards the dungeons, someone fell into step beside her.
Lestrange nodded to her in greeting.
"You're actually showing up to class early today" she said looking behind them for his usual group.
"They're the ones that always hold me up, you know I usually prefer punctuality" he said noticing her looking for them.
"Only when it suits you" she retorted.
He smirked at her, "that's true, if I'm late to any more classes I'm afraid the headmaster will be writing home" his smirk changed into a grimace at the thought.
"Well then, now it makes sense" she gave him her own smirk then.
They had reached the dungeon doors, which he held open for her as she went through and they both found their seats.
Lestrange and her had been potions partners for years, much to the annoyance of his friends - who would have loved to have him as their partner.
For Lestrange, was a dab hand at potions, he was easily the best in their year, and even in their more junior years she suspected he was better than most of the seniors.
But his friends couldn't hope to keep up with him in this class and so he had chosen her to be his partner back in second year - only after he had observed her for the whole of first year in potions class back when she was partnered with Magda McAllister, who was terrible at potions, and yet she had managed to be good enough for the both of them to produce first rate potions in every class.
Lestrange flicked through some advanced textbook as Professor Slughorn started speaking, and Hellebore, Nolan and Hector just came in through the doors and filed into their seats.
"Try to keep to the time you three", Professor Slughorn just told them absentmindedly as he continued with his lecture.
Professor Slughorn was notorious for his differential treatment towards different students. He generally favoured Slytherin students or exceptional students who he thought would become notable in the future or students who had notable connections already. Lestrange and herself were one his most coveted students. So was Adam, much to Lestrange's annoyance.
It always made her chuckle a bit when she saw Weasley getting into trouble by Slughorn, despite being the quidditch captain, the professor never looked twice at him. She had found out that he had been given detention by him that very night he had accosted her. Serves him right!
As the class went on she wordlessly worked with Lestrange to prepare the potion they had been assigned.
That was how it worked with him. You just got the work done as efficiently as possible so he could go on back to his reading.
She had always thought that he didn't mind her company as much as he did other's because she was quiet and got things done.
He only interrupted once to tell her to cut less asphodel root;
"don't cut off more than you can chew" he'd told her giving her that look like he was talking about something else.
"It's, bite off more than you can chew" she corrected.
"Not in this case" he gave her his trademark smirk, as he took the pieces she'd cut up and added them to the potion, brushing her hands as he picked up the pieces.
The lesson ended with their potion being rated the highest and Hellebore's robes being covered in the potion she had been preparing. Honestly, she was sure the only reason Hellebore even continued with potions was because the rest of her friends were in this class, and she couldn't stand to be in a class where she couldn't sit with at least a group of people.
The rest of the day went by quickly like any other, she always focussed in class - really, school was the only thing she was good at. And even that took an enormous amount of work - more than she cared to admit, to maintain her grades as well as to soak in as much knowledge as she could. People like Lestrange gave studying an almost effortless look. He read things once and could write an entire essay on the topic.
It was evening now and she was just going back to her dormitory from dinner when she passed Charis, clad in quidditch gear.
"We're totally going to crush Hufflepuff this weekend, you best warn Adam!" she giggled, winking at her, as she hurried ahead to catch up with her teammates.
She rolled her eyes at her sister's childishness. But she wouldn't change her endearing sister for anything. No, in fact this was the very innocence she had worked so hard to protect - for both her sisters. Despite growing up in a blood purist family - her parents were not really the fanatic type - more the bending to the way things were type of people; they wouldn't accept anyone but pure-blood husbands for their daughters. But there were families that were more extreme, especially some of the families her parents unfortunately associated with.
When she was young she had realised how privileged they were - to be so sheltered and at the same time wealthy and in such a high position in society. Her sisters were beautiful and so they never wanted for anything. Whereas she was always the plain one.
Callidora; her mothers favourite, the beautiful femme fatale, who was graceful and kind and naive, who danced the best in every ball and was always effortlessly popular wherever she went. It had been so hard to get out of her shadow when she had first come to Hogwarts.
On the other hand, if Callidora was the femme fatale, then Charis was the ingenue; energetic and cheeky and brilliant at quidditch, her father's favourite little princess; both shared an intense passion for the sport.
Both her sisters were carefree, but she was not. From her first day at Hogwarts she had decided who she was going to be. She would get the best grades and be the head girl and she would protect her sisters from every hardship in this world. It was difficult at first to get good grades, but slowly after much effort, studying became easier for her over time, which was when Lestrange took notice of her and included her in his newly formed club.
Which at the time she was grateful for, it gave her a place outside of her sister's shadow, but little did she know then, that she was stepping into another shadow - and one that she wouldn't be able to get out of.
Lost in her thoughts she found that she had wondered outside, the cool evening air was refreshing against her cheeks and tired eyes.
She wanted to be free for just a few minutes from everything.
And so looking around to make sure no one was there, she jumped up and her arms turned into wings, her feet into little talons, her mouth protruded into a beak and she shrunk - into a little black robin.
She flew up but kept below the castle rooftops and glided past the Gryffindor towers and saw the Slytherin team practicing from afar. She saw her sister doing loops on her broom way up high and laughing with her friends.
Her fear of heights came back to her but she forced it down, her ridiculous fear prevented her from flying very high, no matter how much she wanted to fly as freely as her sister did on her broom.
The moon was a sliver of a crescent, barely emitting any light, making the the stars shine bright, as she stared up at them. Sighing, she flew back down to the ground and changed back to her human form as her feet touched the ground; no longer talons.
But as she looked up from the ground, she found herself face to face with none other than a very shocked Septimus Weasley.
Why out of all the people who could have found out about this secret did it have to be the one person that wanted to uncover all of them?
"You're an animigus!" he just said standing there, the broom in his hand had dropped to the ground when she had quite stupidly landed right in front of him, and he hadn't quite come back to his senses enough to pick it up yet.
"Very observant" she replied cooly moving to walk past him.
"Not so fast" he grabs her arm and commands his broom to jump up into his other hand.
He fixes her with a piercing gaze, and she finds she cannot look away. With his blue eyes trained on her and the twinkling stars shining bright behind him, she finds herself frozen.
His gaze roves her whole body as if making himself believe what he just saw, their closeness making her more unsure of herself than she had been in her entire life. She finds her eyes travel down from his eyes to his lips, which are slightly open. Finding herself being drawn to them she forces herself to look back at his eyes, only to find him staring at her lips himself. He feels her eyes on his and quickly shifts his gaze back to her's as well.
"How long have you been able to do that?" he finally asked, breaking the tense silence.
She shook her arm free from his grip, trying to break out of the weird trance she had just been in, "I managed to finally transform in third year" she said, no use hiding this secret from him now, she reasoned.
He looked at her in awe, blue eyes wide and she felt herself embarrassed - unused to such direct admiration.
"So is that how you always manage to never get caught at night, what else do you use your ability for?" "Any nefarious schemes I should know about?" He asked all in quick succession, raising his eyebrows in curiosity.
She thought back to the time she had spied on Lestrange and his gang in the library from above the book shelf she had flown up to, and how she had raced to get back to the dormitory before Hellebore, flying right over her head. Memories of all the countless other times she had transformed into a robin to quickly flit away, flashed through her mind. "It's none of your business" she said tiredly, bringing a hand up to massage her temples.
"A robin eh?" he smiled eventually, "is that the form of your patronus as well?" he continued questioning her.
This time the embarrassment heated her face, a traitorous blush growing on her cheeks.
He looked at her confusedly, but even he figured it out; "what, you can't produce a patronus?" he asked his smile turning into a grin.
"It's a useless spell anyway" she said defensively crossing her arms and belatedly realising how childish that sounded, she dropped her arms to her sides and started to walk away from him again, towards the castle.
He raced to catch up to her.
"It's handy for sending messages" he said.
"You can do that?" she asked, looking at him, surprise getting the better of her. Using the patronus spell to send messages was an advanced skill which was difficult to master.
"What's with the tone of surprise?" he asked with a teasing smile, "all you have to do is think of something happy".
She turned away from him, entering the castle, hating that she couldn't do the one spell that came so naturally to her sisters and now as she learnt, to Septimus as well.
"What form does your patronus take then?" she asked, looking at him again, driving the focus off of her.
He gave her a wide smile then, and fishing his wand out of his robes, he looked her straight in the eyes "expecto patronum" his voice, confident and powerful, made her stop walking and once again she was frozen. A wispy silver came out of his wand, which became clearer and more defined as it ran around the two of them. It was a dog; a Labrador. She felt a smile forming on her face.
"It suits you", she said as the patronus faded away, "you're always following me around like a dog".
"Hey!" He said in surprised amusement as she once again started walking away from him.
As he raced to catch up with her, a couple came tumbling out of the broom cupboard they were just about to walk past, crashing into them.
She found herself looking at a dishevelled and sheepish Mason McKinnon and an equally dishevelled but annoyed Magda McAllister. Both of their expressions soon turned to one of surprise as they saw who was beside her.
"Sep?!"
"What are you doing here?" McKinnon exclaimed, looking from her to Septimus as he tried to figure it out.
Knowing where this line of enquiry would eventually end up, especially judging by the suspicious look she saw on Magda's face, she decided to clear any misconceptions early on and assert her position.
"I caught Weasley flying on his broom after hours outside of the Gryffindor practice hours, as I have just caught the two of you. Five points each to be taken from the three of you and you are to head back to your dormitories now" she said authoritatively.
Septimus looked at her incredulously, absolutely furious, while Magda just rolled her eyes, looking bored now. McKinnon on the other hand seemed perfectly fine with this punishment, accepting it with a hint of relief.
"What?!" Septimus yelled.
"Shut up" she furiously said in a quieter voice than his.
"Do you want a professor to find you and dock more points, or give you another detention?" she looked him in the eye, hoping he would use his brain for once.
"But - you" he spluttered looking at her and then at his friends.
Afraid he would spill her secret, she gave him a stern look and mouthed 'later' as she walked past him.
This time he did not try to follow her.
A/N: Thank you for reading!