Chapter 5: Surprise

Matilda chatted with Amy Haywood, a blonde girl from Hufflepuff, as she walked through the castle corridors after breakfast. It was a rare sunny Saturday morning in September, so they planned to enjoy the sunshine with a few friends.

She noticed Sylvia heading to the library on their way, but she didn't bother. Her adoptive sister had just finished her last detention yesterday evening and was longing for a chance to bury herself in books.

Why would anyone love books? Matilda nearly wondered out loud but stopped herself just in time.

She has her own ways, and so do I.

Apart from Albus Potter and Scorpius Malfoy going missing, there were no other things happening lately for Matilda. She would pay some attention to the Quidditch trails, of course, but she wouldn't take part in it anyway. Her friends were just interested in which team would make it to the Cup by the end of the year.

Still, it was one of the big things at the start of the term.

"Who do you think will join the team this year?" Elsbeth Fawley, a Hufflepuff girl with short brown hair asked the lot.

"Adam did quite well last year in Flying Class, and he told me he would sign up." Amy offered.

Matilda remembered them mentioning that boy before. Adam Jones, a bit of a show-off but nice when he wanted to talk.

"Yeah, and Max Tuckett, if I remember correctly." Hart Bones, one of the Bones twins, joined in.

Hart's sister Flaria wasn't with them, though. The two looked the same except from their eyes. Hart had bright green ones while Flaria had light brown. However, they had pretty much the opposite way of living.

Just like Sylvia and I. Matilda thought with a slight sigh in her mind.

"What about Ravenclaw, Mat?" Amy turned to her.

"Wait, you're definitely not going to take this information to your House Quidditch team captain, are you?" She replied in mock offense, "Nah, I'm joking. As far as I know, Sylvia and Tim are going for the trials for sure, and Mora might give a try."

"Sylvia and Tim? The rumoured first couple of our year?" Elsbeth lit up her eyes.

"Don't say that! We're only second-years, Elsbeth!" Amy reminded her friend, chuckling, "but they do stick together a lot, right?"

Not to this again. "They're just good friends, you know. And they're both friends of our House's prefect, hayden Rivers in sixth year, that's all." Matilda didn't want to talk about this subject. She had trouble from this already.

"Ooh, hayden Rivers, the Beater of the Ravenclaw Quidditch team, and now captain, I suppose? I hear that many girls are after him from all Houses." Elsbeth smiled as if daydreaming, "he's handsome…"

Matilda rolled her eyes, "But you can't get to him. He's surrounded by students these days." She didn't mention that "students" referred to Sylvia and Tim.

"He's kind as well. Did you see how he answered the first-year's questions in the library the other day?" Elsbeth continued.

"Cut off right there, mate, we don't want you start your dream right in front of us." Amy stopped her just in time.

Inside the castle, Sylvia walked into the library with a slight grin on her face. Hayden promised her that he would be free today and invited her here to study.

"The prefects' section..." she murmured, searching for the sixth-year Ravenclaw prefect.

"Hey, Sylv!" she heard a whisper-shout and turned by the corner to find Hayden behind a bookshelf. He was wearing a plain white school uniform shirt as usual.

"Hi, Hayden." She greeted him with a grin, and then took a seat next to him.

She had a look around. There were few students in the prefects' section, as there were only 24 prefects in total and not all of them would come here for studying.

"Want a snack?" Hayden offered her some candies provided by the library. It was a priority for the prefects.

"Thanks. I didn't know we could have snacks in the library." She accepted a candy but didn't decide to open it at once.

"We can't, as a matter of fact." Hayden said seriously. Sylvia stared at him, not knowing what to say when he continued, "but who cares?"

If they weren't in the library, Sylvia would laugh out loud to his words. It was hard to believe those words would come from a prefect.

After the short interlude, they quickly returned to study mode.

"Right. First question," Hayden started, "What have you learnt so far? Like, to which year?"

Sylvia surfed through her mind, and then answered, "At least fifth-year, I guess."

"Animagi is definitely not a fifth-year subject." Hayden muttered.

"I meant in average." She added.

"Fair enough," the prefect went on to check her understanding on some tricky questions, ranging from their most familiar DADA, to Transfiguration and Charms, and to Wizarding politics.

The first few topics were at her comfort zone, and she put up quite a discussion. However, when it came to real-life problems, she found herself nowhere.

"I'm not really sure... why should us students bother the political status, I mean, we barely have anything to do with it." Sylvia sighed, not satisfied with not knowing something.

"It's not an essential thing to know, but sometimes you find it helpful." Hayden replied, "at least you have to know the two major Parties in the muggle world to live in this country, and learn about the policies on schooling, becoming of age, use of magic outside school, the legal and illegals, ways to make a living..."

"That's, a, lot."

"...But you don't have to hurry. We can get started on magic first." To her relief, the older boy didn't try to introduce any heavy political books.

Hayden chose Charms to begin with, and recommended some interesting theory books for her to read. Then, Sylvia started on the first one called Introduction to Nonverbal Spells, with Hayden working on his own research by her side.

The atmosphere fell in silence. But it wasn't the kind of awkward silence, instead the silence of eagerness to knowledge.

She had the habit of taking notes while reading. Since it the library's book instead of hers, she took out a parchment to write.

Nonverbal spells is an interesting topic, despite its difficulty. It delves into the real mechanism of casting a spell form the summoning of one's magic. Sylvia found it worth a try, but there were still some questions to overcome through practise.

For example, when pronuncing a spell, she just felt something was triggered inside her, and the spell would shoot out of the wandtip automatically. However, she never had the idea about where exactly she should reach out to in her body when actually triggering her magic on her own.

Time passed real quick. She decided to borrow that book from the library to continue reading. She circled some questions in her notes and handed the nearly-full parchment to Hayden as they headed out of the library towards the Hall for lunch.

"I'll have a look and respond before Monday." Hayden promised, "And do remember to practise Quidditch, I expect to see you on the pitch next week."

"Fine." She pulled on the tone, making the herself sound a bit frustrated, but then grinned, "just see how it goes."

They agreed on the next co-studying session on next Saturday afternoon - due to the tryouts being on Saturday morning.

Everything went on well. For Sylvia, she was sure to get into the team with her flying talents and wind powers. As for her other second-year friends, Tim and Musa also got in the team without doubt.

Sylvia was chosen to be Seeker in the team since the previous person in the spot, Toby Partum, also the former team captain, had graduated from seventh-year. Tim got to be a Chaser, and Musa was picked to be a Beater, but the current Beaters who are still going to play the games this school year are Hayden Rivers and Pridi Planus.

September came to its second half with a few other minor affairs taking place. The addition of Quidditch training didn't put too much stir to her routine, as her lesson went on, though quite boringly especially DADA, and her interactions with friends didn't change much, despite the fact that Matilda still refused to talk to her.

Even without Matilda, life has to go on for Sylvia. She continued to investigate on nonverbal spells, and figured that some of the theories could apply to wandless magic as well.

"An interesting assumption," That was Hayden's remark, "Perhaps try putting it into practice?"

It was a cloudy Tuesday afternoon passing by without Professor Afstin's class, which was why Sylvia had a rather bright mood.

"Sylv," Tim called from behind her as she was heading towards the library as usual, "May I borrow a moment?" He smiled brightly like he always would when he was up to something.

Sylvia decided not to point that out, but instead followed his setting, "Sure, what for?"

"Just... a problem we happen to have in the RoR." the boy continued smiling, while gazing to the side.

"Okay..." she nodded slowly and thought about the nearest route to that particular place.

If it was anyone unfamiliar that asked her to go somewhere, she would most definitely not agree. Last time she decided to trust someone like that, which was a mistake due to the stress she had at that time about Animagi and Polyjuice Potion, she got into the huge trouble of facing a bunch of upper grade Slytherin students, and that situation forced her to show the unique powers.

But for Tim, for her friends, she would put trust in them.

She remembered not seeing her friends after lessons yesterday, though didn't take it on seriously because most of the time they would study in random sections in the library, finishing homework and then exploring interested topics. It would be Potions for Mora, Charms for Davina, and Herbology and Fantastic Beasts for Miya. As for the boys, it was pretty much the same, with Tim studying Defence Against the Dark Arts and all sorts of useful duelling spells, and Tommy fancying Astronomy.

And thinking back, they were probably planning on something behind her.

This would be "the thing". She could tell. Sometimes it's happier for her instincts and logical thinking to shut down for a while, and to enjoy the delight of surprise.

Approaching the Room of Requirement, she took a deep breath quietly and closed her eyes when Tim told her to. After a short wait lasting a few seconds, she stepped in.

Feeling from her eyelids, she knew it was dark in the room, and then everything lit up. She opened her eyes and adjusted to the light as a loud "boom" from the back immediately caught her attention.

"Happy Birthday!" It was Mora who shouted, and her sound overlapped with a not-so-loud one from Tim who said the same thing beside Sylvia.

"We didn't get to know each other well enough to set up a celebration last year, so Tim came up with the idea to do a big one." Mora went on to explain, "Can't believe you're this 'old' among us."

"Well, I can't decide when to be born." Sylvia replied. She took a look around - there were some basic decorations, perhaps borrowed from somewhere in this special room, and a chocolate cake with candles designed in the shape of number 13 standing on it.

She wondered about the possible sources of this cake, and suggested to herself that it might be the house elves in the school kitchen. But how did they persuade the elves to...?

That would be a question left for later. As she thought they would just start having the cake and the celebration would be over, the door opened again.

"Hope I'm not too late - got Afstin's class, that old hag." Hayden Rivers walked in, "I was shocked when you said you knew about this room, actually, Tim."

"Didn't I mention it before?" The boy mumbled over that issue.

"Anyway, happy birthday to you, Sylv. I brought these from Hogsmeade for you lot to share, but didn't really expect there to be so many of you." He raised the paper bag in his left hand, revealing the content inside.

"Wow," Sylvia gasped, "I mean, this is quite unexpected. Thanks, Hayden!"

"How come we can only go to Hogsmeade in third-year?" Davina complained, seeing the bag of sweets and chocolates.

"Just a final check, is this everybody?" Sylvia turned to Tim who she assumed to be the one behind this, and the boy gave a nod, "We can get started, then."

The birthday song, the presents, the wishes. She remained still for a moment, before blowing the candles.

First formal birthday at Hogwarts.

She held up the plastic knife and made the first cut on the cake.

First formal birthday without the presence of Matilda.

The dazzling light fell on the protagonist of the day.