When I wake the next morning, snuggled tightly beneath a dark navy blanket in a comfortable four-poster bed, three pairs of eyes stare down at me.
"Who are you?" the blue eyes ask interestedly.
And even though I'm still half-asleep, my brain automatically forces that practiced line out – "I'm Aria Fields, I'm new this year" - and I paw at my bleary eyes lazily.
"Oh." The blue eyes blink, and the girl twirls a long chunk of bleached blonde hair around her finger. "I'm Gabrielle Ancrum."
"And I'm Mia McCubbin," adds a second girl, this one with deep brown eyes and a pixie cut.
Then the third girl, one I recognize from the train, clears her throat while fiddling with a silver pin on her robes. "I'm Sophie Fincher," she announces after she's sufficiently straightened the badge. "Nice to meet you."
"Same." I rub my eyes again as the girls move away from my bed, apparently satisfied with the introductions, and busy themselves with preparing for the first day of classes. It looks like a war zone in the dormitory, with trunks halfway unpacked and makeup bags spilling over onto tables.
I know I should have introduced myself last night, but I bolted out of dinner last night with a group of escorted first-years and the room was empty when I arrived. By the time I heard the other girls wander in, I was already tucked into my four-poster bed with the curtains drawn, and I couldn't bring myself to awkwardly interrupt their post-summer break bonding.
I vaguely catch a few snatches of conversation as I dig around my trunk for my uniform – something about a Gryffindor named Lila Andrews – but the chatter dies down once I barricade myself in the bathroom. When I reemerge about twenty minutes later, freshly showered and hair wand-dried, the girls are gone, leaving nothing but the messy shell of our room behind.
"Great," I mutter to myself, and then I sling my bag over my shoulder and wander on down the spiral staircase towards the common room, wondering how in the world I'm going to find breakfast.
Soft early morning light trails in through graceful, high arching windows, illuminating the airy, domed room draped in bronze and blue. I couldn't really see much when we trailed up here last night, owing mostly to the large crush of students, the dim lamplight and my own exhaustion – but today I can truly see it. And I think I could definitely get used to this place.
Right now, though, I'd very much to eat breakfast.
I manage to subtly shadow a group of third years down the maze of passages and staircases to what I hear them call the "Great Hall" – the dining area we feasted in last night – but how we got there, I couldn't tell you. And to be completely honest, I'm too embarrassed to ask for directions, so I just sort of trail slowly behind them and try to mentally keep track of the various moving staircases that Dominique warned me about on the train.
The third years trail off towards the far end of the Ravenclaw table, the section closest to the faculty seating area, while I opt to sit at the other end, like I did last night. It feels much lighter during the day, with groups of friends spread out in clumps across tables, not all pressed together like during the feast. More casual, too, I guess, as no one dons formal robes, either.
"Hey!" An excited voice says behind me, and I glance around in surprise as a stream of pale blonde flounces down on the bench. "I've just gotten my schedule. What about you? So glad you found the hall, by the way, it's a nightmare trying to find your way around this place for the first few weeks."
Dominique Weasley flourishes a piece of paper – her schedule, apparently – and I blink once, trying to sort out everything she just said. "Erm, not yet Dominique, but I -"
"Would you please stop calling me Dominique? Dominique sounds like a stuffy old woman's name." She wrinkles her nose at that in disdain and slides a piece of toast onto an empty plate. "All of my friends call me Dom."
"Yeah, and everyone else calls her Dumb Dom," a red-haired girl mumbles from a few seats down the table as she stuffs a spoonful of oatmeal into her mouth.
"Shut up, Lucy! Just because I'm not a stuck-up, snobbish know-it-all in Ravenclaw –"
"Ms. Weasley," a strict voice cuts in, "Shouldn't you be sitting at the Slytherin table?" Dom lets out an audible gulp as Professor Abberly, head of Ravenclaw House, appears behind her and shoots her an icy glare through his circular glasses. Abberly actually isn't so bad – I met him earlier this summer to discuss the house Quidditch team – but I suppose the stern look and coiffed grey hair do give off a certain air.
"I – um – I was just, uh –"
"You were just what? Insulting my house? Is that correct, Ms. Weasley?"
"Sorry, professor. I'll just go, then –"
"Please do," Abberly says coldly, and Dom's mouth gapes slightly before she slides off the bench and cuts her way to a table on the far side of the hall.
"How she's related to you, Weasley, I'll never know," Professor Abberly says with a sigh before passing a schedule to both me and the red-haired girl. "And Ms. Fields, I am truly so thrilled to have you in our house. I'm sure the Quidditch team will be thrilled to have you as well. Have you met Aiden Wood yet?"
"I – no?" I say disorientedly. Maybe I have, maybe I haven't. I can't keep track of all the names or faces or how everyone's related.
"Wood!" Abberly says sharply, and down the table, a big, burly boy with dark hair turns in our direction, then climbs off the bench and strides over towards us at Abberly's request. "Wood, I want you to meet Aria Fields, the newest addition to Ravenclaw," Abberly says, and the boy beside him, Aiden Wood, flicks his eyes over me in assessment. "I'm resting the hopes of Ravenclaw house on the two of you, if only because I can't stand another year of Longbottom gloating."
Abberly lets out a sigh at that and floats off down the table, passing out more schedules, as Aiden Wood studies me coldly. "So, you're the new girl Abberly's forcing me to put on the team, huh?"
"I suppose," I say dryly, and he takes a seat on the bench across from mine.
"Chaser, right?"
"How did you -"
"Your dad," he says, shrugging absentmindedly. The cold exterior cracks slightly at that, and Aiden spoons a small serving of eggs onto his plate. "I mean, you just moved to the U.K. and have the last name Fields – not too hard to figure out. I hate Appleby, but I can't lie and say it wasn't a smart signing. I really wish Puddlemere had landed him."
He says it almost wistfully, and I feel a grin tug at the corners of my mouth. I honestly had no idea people knew anything about my dad here before he signed with Appleby. The U.S. Quidditch league doesn't exactly get a ton of airtime on WizTelevision.
"Anyway," Aiden continues around a mouthful of egg,"if you're half as good as your dad is, we might actually have a chance this year." He nods at something behind me, and I swivel my head around to follow his gaze. "Gryffindor'll be our stiffest competition once again, I suspect. Doesn't help that Longbottom made James Potter captain this year, either. He'll have them in shape."
The boy in question, identifiable by that mess of jet-black hair on his head, sits nearly parallel to us at the Gryffindor table with his friend from last night, Jett, whispering conspiratorially back and forth.
"Right, so with you at Chaser, we should have the whole team set, unless someone drops. We'll still have tryouts, of course, just in case someone better shows, and I was thinking three weekends from now, as Potter somehow already has the pitch booked for next weekend. Longbottom showing favoritism again, typical." He grimaces at that, his face twisting into a scowl, and I take the momentary lapse in conversation to reach for my pumpkin juice.
Except I probably shouldn't have, because not two seconds later a boom rattles throughout the room and a tidal wave of stickiness explodes out of my goblet.
I feel my mouth gape open slightly as I pull in a deep gasp, my eyelids fluttering to reopen through the dripping liquid, as a sudden silence pulses around the dining hall. It's so quiet that you could hear a pygmy puff squeal – or, as it were, pumpkin juice dripping onto the stone floor - but it only lasts a few moments, maybe more, and then the buzz of chatter slowly returns.
When I finally wrench my eyes open, dragging my forearm across my face in disgust, Aiden Wood sort of hides a snigger and then flicks a bit of splatter off his plate. "Thanks," I mutter, and he shrugs slightly.
"Hey, Wood," a gruff voice says from behind me, and then I feel the bench move as someone drops down beside me. "New girl."
Ah. James. Of course.
His wand sticks out of his pocket, tucked there lazily, and when I see the cocky grin flickering across his face – well, it doesn't take a genius to figure out what just happened.
"Why the hell would you do -" I hiss, but I stop short when a shadow casts itself across the table, and a miserable-looking man with sunken cheekbones tuts down disapprovingly at us.
"Less than a day into the start of term, Mr. Potter? A new record for you, surely."
"What can I say, Professor?" James replies smoothly, and I feel my cheeks tingle with a bit of flush as the conversations around us pause to eavesdrop. "I just missed these little chats of ours so very much."
"Detention." The word comes curling out of his mouth, almost savoring it, and then his beady gaze shifts over to me, watching a bit of pumpkin juice drip from my hair. "For both of you."
"What?" I gasp, clambering off the bench. I will not get a detention – I've never had a detention in my life, and I certainly have no plans to start now. "But I didn't do –"
"Shall we make it two?"
My jaw snaps shut at that and I look around desperately, searching for someone – anyone – Professor Abberly, maybe – surely he can't just give me a detention for nothing, that's not fair –
"Friday evening at eight." The words leak out of his mouth coldly, and as he turns away I glance behind me to the sound of sniggers. James stuffs a bite of toast into his mouth innocently, still grinning with that self-satisfied look, and I –
Well, I simply grab my bag and walk out of the dining hall, shivering from the pumpkin juice despite the heat of eyes watching me. And it's only once I make it outside, through the doors into the wide open atrium of the entrance hall, that I feel everything start to hit.
Embarrassment, mostly. At everyone looking, laughing, and mocking. Embarrassment from being the center of attention, from the new girl getting picked on, just all of it, and I don't really know where I'm going, so I just kind of wander around in hopes of finding Ravenclaw Tower.
But I'm lost and alone and still covered in pumpkin juice, so I slink down against a cold stone wall and start to feel hot tears slip out of my eyes – embarrassment and frustration, distilled, and tinged with loneliness.
I don't want to be here. I don't want to go through this again. I don't want to learn names and map a new castle and navigate cultural norms or any of it. I don't want it.
It's just hard. Moving again, being an outsider again, the strange, foreign object that people stare at for amusement. I've already seen it happening. I mean, it's bound to, in a school this small. Even people I haven't met yet recognize that I'm a new face; it's impossible not to catch all the curious looks and whispers. That James kid even made me part of his little show-off act.
I remember last year, on my first day at Ilvermorny, how judged I felt when I walked into classrooms for the first time, with sun-bleached hair and skin tanned from hours on the California beaches. I didn't fit in there. Not at first, at least, just like I don't belong here, either.
"Fresh start," I mutter to myself, somewhat sarcastically, but I suppose my mom was right. And maybe it hasn't exactly gone exactly well yet, but I still have the whole first day to at least try and change my perspective. You don't improve unless you make an effort, as Dad likes to say, so I dig into my bag and find my wand, mutter a quick tergeo, and get back on my feet.
I finally manage to find the correct classroom for Charms a good thirty minutes later, thanks in no small part to the group of second-years who pointed me in the right direction. A gentle buzz of chatter hangs over the room like a cloud as students quietly talk in groups around the outskirts of the room. A few familiar faces again – the girl with shiny brunette curls from last night, my roommates, and over in the corner a fellow blonde, Dominique, who waves at me. Thank Merlin.
"Hey," she exclaims brightly, like a perky ray of sunshine. "Glad you made it."
Thankfully, Dom's tucked in a corner on the back right side of the room, with no one around to disturb us, so I slide into a seat next to her. I'm not quite sure what her deal is yet, but it does seem a bit odd that she's always on her own. Especially when you're as gorgeous as her.
"It was a struggle," I admit as I dip down to dig my textbook out of my bag.
When I reemerge, she's got the same Witch Weekly she read on the train yesterday flat on her desk, prominently displaying a quiz entitled "Which Quidditch position does your dream man play?"
"D'you reckon I'd rather go on a date to the beach or a fancy restaurant?" she asks absentmindedly, and I glance down at the marked-up quiz as she nibbles on the end of her quill.
"I –"
But a loud shriek from across the classroom cuts me off, and Dom and I both swivel in sync to gaze at the source of the commotion. That same brunette Gryffindor girl that seems to keep popping up everywhere lunges towards a quill that James holds hostage above his head, dangling it teasingly just out of her reach.
Dom sighs and mutters something about Gryffindors under her breath before returning to her Witch Weekly quiz. Across the room, meanwhile, James lets out a laugh as the girl clambers up on the desk to snatch her quill, then sticks the feathered end in her face like a duster while she playfully smacks his chest.
"Sorry about my cousin, by the way," Dom comments. I glance back over at her, tearing my eyes away from the quill escapades, and watch as she emphatically circles "Beater" at the bottom of the quiz. "He can be a lot to handle."
"Not your fault." I shrug and peer over her shoulder at the personality analysis for her quiz result, but the door to the classroom slams emphatically shut before I can get a full sentence read.
"Good morning, class!" comes Professor Abberly's chipper yet commanding voice. "I trust you all had wonderful summers. Mr. Potter, give the quill back, please," he tacks on, without so much as a glance in James' direction. "We'll begin with Chapter One. Please open your books."
I've always liked Charms – not as much as Transfiguration, though, which gets far more technical – and I really enjoy Abberly's teaching style, particularly his emphasis on correct wand work. Dom doesn't, although that might be because she apparently doesn't really get along well with my Head of House. She whispered something about accidentally setting fire to his robes in her third year while Abberly berated the Gryffindor boys for not paying attention, but I couldn't quite catch all the details.
The classroom explodes into a whirlwind of activity as soon as Abberly dismisses us, and chairs scrape in a rough cacophony against the floor as everyone stretches up, slightly stiff from the first lesson of the year. No matter how much I enjoyed the class, it's still a bit rough getting back into the swing of long lectures.
"Oh, you've got Potions next? So lucky," Dom complains as we pile our materials back into our bags. "I've got Divination. It's absolutely awful, never take it. I'm only doing it so I can intern with the Predictions & Horoscopes Department at Witch Weekly. Anyway, you'll want to head down to the dungeons, so hang a left at this corridor and then..."
I nod, taking mental notes as she describes the way to the dungeons, and before I know it she's waving cheerfully at me and heading towards the Divination tower. Pretty sure I hear her mumble "crazy oversized insect," under her breath, but that's neither here nor there.
Shivering, I tug the sleeves down on my uniform as I wander into the Potions classroom ten minutes later, snagging a stool at the back. The class slowly filters in behind me, but everyone stands around the outside of the room, away from the two-person lab tables.
Sophie Fincher, the auburn prefect from my dorm, catches my eye after a few minutes and gestures me over, so I pick myself up off the chair and migrate to an empty standing spot beside her.
"We never get to pick our partners or our seats," she whispers to me as the classroom door clicks shut quietly. An imposing pair of black robes swishes down the aisle between the lab tables, and when the robes turn to face us, I instantly feel a small pit of dread in my stomach. It's that miserable professor from this morning, the one who slapped me with detention just for existing. Just my luck.
"Wood, Applebee," he drones, tapping his knuckles against the first lab table before moving to the second. "Boot, Crenshaw."
The class twitters on casually in the background, bored with the proceedings, and the chatter only breaks when friend groups groan as they split apart. Finally, I hear "Nolton, Fields," and the professor taps a lab table just a few feet from my spot at the back of the classroom. I'm not sure who Nolton is, but I sidle up to the table anyway and dump my bag onto the onyx surface.
"Hey."
I jump slightly, my heart rocketing, as I turn to face the voice beside me, and a semi-familiar, dimpled smile greets me. "Hey," I say, smiling back, and Jett – whose last name is apparently Nolton – pulls out his stool with a sharp screech against the stone floor.
"Lucky," I hear James mutter as he walks past our table, dropping down heavily at the station behind us. His partner, Sophie Fincher, looks positively unwound, cheeks nearly the color of her auburn hair, and I feel a slight twinge of second-hand embarrassment as her hand flutters nervously to smooth out her robes.
"Today we will start with a refresher of last year's material," the professor drones, and I swivel back to look at the front of the room as a piece of chalk scrawls across the blackboard. "I trust you all reviewed your notes before class." James snorts at that behind me, and the professor's beady eyes narrow in on him. "Or not, Mr. Potter."
Jett leans over towards me then, and I catch a whiff of his cologne, something sweet that I can't quite place. "James is right. You're so lucky you got paired with me, Fields," he whispers, and I turn slightly to peer into his stormy grey eyes. "I'm the best in our year, but don't tell anyone."
And by the end of the lesson, I sort of do believe it. We had to make a simple cure for boils to round out the class, and Jett didn't even bother consulting Magical Drafts and Potions as he whipped it together. We finished before the rest of the pairs, too, and the professor – Spencer, I think his name is – dismisses us early.
So we stroll out of the dungeon together, Jett with his bag slung casually over his shoulder, and when we make it out into the hallway, he turns to look at me with a self-satisfied smirk on his face. "Told you."
"Yes, yes, I'm very thankful," I say, and he lets out a bark of laughter.
"What have you got next?"
"Free period, I think," I mumble as I dig back into my bag for my class schedule. He pauses, waiting by the staircase until I pull out the parchment, and then we start back up into the castle, walking together slowly. "What does one do here during a –"
But the words fall off as a bang echoes through the castle for the second time today and a loud shriek clangs through the corridor. "Everybody calm down!" I hear Spencer yelling above the ensuing clamor, and Jett laughs again. "It's just a simple hair-raising potion! If your hair is standing on end, form a line in front of my desk at once – single file, Ms. Applebee, single file!"
The door to the classroom opens just then, and James sneaks out furtively, a mischievous grin flickering across his face. He waves when he sees us – well, when he sees Jett, I suppose – and ambles lazily towards the stairwell, both hands stuck into his pockets.
"What did you do?" Jett asks, shaking his head in amusement as James approaches.
"Like Professor Spencer said – a simple hair-raising potion. Honestly, I thought Fincher would figure it out before I finished. She is a Ravenclaw, after all." His hazel eyes glint wickedly in the dim light of the dungeons, and he turns towards me with that same mischievous smirk. "I was feeling inspired."
My face flushes a bit at that, and I can almost feel the stickiness of the pumpkin juice on me again, but thankfully James turns away as a high-pitched, angry voice rings out through the stairwell.
" James ! Professor Spencer is absolutely furious!" Sophie fumes as she strides towards us, face still flushed from class.
"What else is new?" he comments off-handedly, and Jett lets out another bark of laughter.
"He wants to see you in his office right now !"
James shrugs nonchalantly as Sophie shoots him a death glare, then stuffs his hands back into his pockets and casually saunters towards the classroom. Like – I don't know. Like he doesn't even care that he's about to get another detention, probably.
Sophie huffs, a few of her auburn curls flying up at the motion, and turns to follow him, but not before shooting a similarly vengeful glare at Jett, who can't quite seem to keep his laughter in check. "You need to keep better control of your friend," she spits out through gritted teeth, and then she marches away, her bag banging behind her.
Jett appears unbothered by this, though, and as his last few bursts of laughter bounce around the stairwell, he turns to me with an easy grin.
"Welcome to Hogwarts."