Hello all! This is a story I've had the past couple years that I come back to every so often to enjoy the characters again. And I thought I'd share it and let others hopefully enjoy it too. I used a mixture of the books and movies. It's not perfect, but I hope it's fun.

Nestled within the heart of London was a busy alley crowded with witches and wizards moving between busy shops full of quills and ink, cauldrons, spell books, broomsticks, and wands. And best of all, it was full of magic. A young boy with round glasses and a lightning shaped scar on his forehead had just been fitted for his school robes, still thinking this might just be a dream.

With his new robes in hand, he stepped back onto the cobblestone street looking for the kind giant man he'd met the night before. "Harry," Hagrid called joyfully when he spotted him. "Got someone I want you to meet."

Harry excused himself as he stepped around a group of students his age, looking just as mystified as he felt. He found Hagrid towering over a girl not quite fifteen wearing an oversized blouse and a light pink hijab that complemented her brown skin. "Hello," Harry told her a little too quietly, feeling a rush of warmth creeping up his neck.

"I'm Clione, it's nice to meet you," she replied shaking his small hand. "Hagrid was telling me you didn't know you were a wizard. I bet this is all very exciting." He nodded a little too enthusiastically and her smile softened. "Maybe a little overwhelming?"

Harry gave another nod knowing then he was gonna like her. "A little, yeah," he agreed. "Were you nervous your first year?"

"Definitely," was an easy and quick answer. "Although I was worried more about my English."

"Come now, Clione, you speak it better than most," Hagrid assured her.

Before Harry could ask where she was from her eyes rose over his head and her face brightened as she held up a finger. "Gail's waiting for me. She convinced her parents to let me spend the last month with them. I've never stayed with muggles before." Her eyes were alight with excitement, reminding Harry that a lot of witches and wizards didn't know much about muggles at all.

Hagrid ducked his head and lowered his voice to ask, "d'your grandparents know?"

Her face grew serious and she quickly shook her head. "I shouldn't leave them waiting." She stepped around Hagrid to go after her friend, but she suddenly turned and leaned around Hagrid to look at Harry. "It was nice meeting you, dear. Come find me at school if you need anything."

"Thanks," he told her with a shy grin. She hurried over to a blonde girl her age with a round face and colorful glasses, and they linked arms as they planned to window shop. Before they got too far Clione turned back to Harry with a wave he was quick to return.

..

The first morning a hundred owls streamed through the Great Hall circling the tables as they dropped packages and letters to their owners, it'd given Harry a bit of a shock. But he'd grown used it, as he had with everything else. The fact that nothing ever came for him, he'd also gotten used to. He'd taken to reading the bits of newspaper Mrs. Weasley wrapped Ron's things in. Every so often, as he looked around at all of the students busying themselves with their letters or gifts, his eyes would find Clione across the rows of tables. They often shared a conspiring grin as the two who never got anything.

He hadn't been sure of Clione after finding out she was in Slytherin, a house he'd been told every wizard that went bad was in. Malfoy seemed determined to live up to his house's reputation, in fact most of the Slytherins we're perfectly content playing the villain to any situation. But Clione had been pretty okay; he might even go so far as to say kind. And it wasn't just to Harry, though Ron swore he was her favorite.
She often helped first years find their way when she came across one looking lost, helped other students during study breaks, had tissues for tears or candy for nerves or a draught she'd been perfecting for any ailment; so it became that most students often sought her out when they needed something. She was destined to be Head Girl her seventh year and for something greater when she graduated. Whatever growing pains there had surely been in the beginning had already passed by the time Harry came to Hogwarts.

The day after he made Gryffindor's quidditch team, something Oliver Wood wanted kept secret until their first match, Harry found his own owl among the many flying overhead. He caught the letter Hedwig dropped not recognizing the neat cursive lettering on the envelope. He tore into it trying to quell the bubbling excitement of having finally been sent something.

It was a simple letter congratulating him on making his house's team and how impressive that was, and that should he want a friend to write to then he should give any parchment to a bright green Fwooper named Jamila. Signed, Clione Ayad

"That Slytherin girl?" Ron said in a breathy voice too loud to be called a whisper, reading over Harry's shoulder. "How'd she find out?"

Harry looked around the Great Hall until he spotted a light pink headscarf at the Ravenclaw table with a curly haired Spanish girl from their house and the bespectacled Hufflepuff girl Clione never seemed to be without. All the thanks he had in his body shone through his wide smile when she met his eye.

Across from them Hermione said, "that Slytherin girl is top of every class in her year. The other day I asked what she was reading, and we had a very fascinating discussion on Ancient Egyptian charms."

Ron was rolling his eyes not daring to comment in case Hermione had it in mind to share what they'd talked about. While Fred and George, always aware of what was happening around them, leaned in closer to whisper. "Bet Wood told Clione soon as he told us," offered George.

"He probably told her first," said Fred. And with a rather mean sneer he added, "he's practically in love with her."

That was apparently all he had to say as he returned to his conversation with Lee Jordan. But George looked across the table at Harry. "Sometimes I think Oliver's not the only one," he told Harry with a grin.

That afternoon before dinner Harry and Ron stood in the owlry looking for something green because neither of them knew what a fwooper was. Not even Hermione had though she was quick to excuse herself to the library to find out. Harry was visiting Hedwig while he stared, gently stroking the soft feathers on the top of her head.

"There," Harry exclaimed and pointed at a flash of lime green close to the ceiling.

Ron stood with his head thrown back still not seeing it. "Guess that's why you're the seeker."

Now he had to figure out how to get its attention when any noise they made caused owls to swoop by or turn their heads around in interest. "Jamila?" Harry tried, sharpening the I. Nothing happened. He tried again but this time softening the I like in ill.

He waited with withering hope, thinking he might give his letter to Hedwig. But Ron gave a choked gasp and Harry turned to see a bright green bird no bigger than his hand sitting a top Ron's head.

"Hello," Harry said, not really knowing what to say. She stared at him expectantly with round yellow eyes. Now that he saw how small she was Harry took the parchment from the envelope and rolled it up like a tiny scroll. He knew he was right when Jamila stuck out a small leg for him to tie it to.

"Are you done yet?" Ron asked in a small, strained voice.

She tilted her head to Harry and he reached a timid hand to stroke her feathers. Apparently happy Jamila nipped Ron gently and took off. "I think she liked you," Harry told him. With his hair free Ron held his hands over his head and shot him an unhappy look.

Harry was excited for breakfast the next morning. This time he found Clione sitting at the Hufflepuff table with the same two girls as the day before. The first screech of an owl sounded and Jamila landed on Clione's shoulder and bent her little head for a kiss. Harry's letter had been longer than the one she sent, telling her about growing up thinking he was a muggle and meeting Ron and Hermione and what the first time riding a broom had been like. He'd never had someone to write to before, he hadn't known where to start at first but once he started he'd wanted to tell her everything.

Her grin grew to a smile as she finished it, a smile he returned when she looked up at him across the Great Hall.

"I didn't know they made them that pretty," Ron muttered more to himself as he rested his cheek in hand.

Across from them Hermione rolled her eyes. "You should ask her where she's from next time, she has a faint accent. I didn't feel comfortable asking."

Jamila leaned into Clione for a last kiss before she darted across the tables. Catching a green streak Ron quickly covered his head, but Jamila had her sights set on Fred. "Hello pretty girl," he nearly cooed as she pressed her head onto his cheek. He gave her a bit of ham from his plate, and had she been able to make sound she would've cooed right back.

Their mornings went on like this for some time, sometimes daily others only twice a week when they had more work. She didn't like the Dursleys one bit and informed Harry she would be getting him a Christmas present - though she didn't celebrate it - and that he would not be getting her one. Harry found out she was from Egypt, Hermione gave a hissed 'I knew it,' that her closest and dearest friend was Gail who was in Hufflepuff and the Ravenclaw girl they were usually with was Noemi. They both shared that their parents had died when they were too young to know them, and though her grandparents were cold and strict she said they were far better than the Dursleys. When the older students were allowed to go to Hogsmeade her next letter would come with a sweet from Honeydukes, and Ron swore he loved her when she sent one for him too. After dropping off their letters Jamila always ended on Fred's shoulder, something Harry always caught Clione rolling her eyes about.

..

The morning of Harry's first quidditch match he sat in the Great Hall staring at the beans he pushed around his plate, trying not to imagine them as his brains after a bludger got him. Hermione kept trying to coax him to eat but his rolling stomach wouldn't be convinced. It didn't help that every time someone wished him luck Draco Malfoy, who sat close behind him, would give another scenario of Harry's death.

Harry was trying to push the thought of how flat his body would be if he fell off his broom a hundred feet in the air, the latest scenario Malfoy had provided, when a brown hand with long thin fingers set a small candy in front of him next to his plate. He followed that hand up to Clione's kind face, returning the smile she gave him.

"Thanks," he told her not sure why she was giving him candy. He didn't think he could stomach it either.

He was trying to be nice, her smile grew to one more of amusement. "It's a ginger chew, for the nausea," she explained, catching the subtle way his face brightened. The way it always did when someone was kind to him.

"Thanks," he told her again, only this time he unwrapped it and stuck it in his cheek.

"Oliver told me how well you've been doing in practice."

He shrugged, having heard that from Angelina yesterday when she saw a flash of panic behind his glasses, and from Wood himself nearly everyday the last couple of weeks. "That was only practice, it's real now. In front of everyone," he told her, giving her the worry he'd been holding onto. His face warmed feeling Ron staring at him before Hermione elbowed him.

With a quiet sigh Clione sank onto the bench across from him, her face now as serious as the truth he'd trusted her enough to give. "And it's gonna be scary until you do it," she admitted. It was the first time anyone told him he was allowed to be scared, she could see that plain as day on his relieved face as he let go of a big breath. She folded her arms over the table and leaned forward like she was telling him a secret. "But that's why it feels so good when you get it right. Especially when you get to see his stupid face when you win," she said jerking her chin to where Malfoy sat on the other side of the table with the other Slytherins. It made Harry grin, made him sit up a little higher, take a deeper breath than the shallow quick puffs he was doing before she found him. "You're gonna do great, hun," she said placing her hand over his smaller one.

His smile turned sweeter, more childlike. He'd been hearing various versions of well wishes but this time, with this girl, he believed it. A hushed breath of a whisper tickled his left ear and Harry watched her expression sour as she turned to Fred moments before he could grab her shoulder and scare her.

"Not you," she told him firmly, a little rudely, before turning back to Harry. She patted his hand and stood turning to the two sitting beside him. "I expect to hear you both cheering for him."

Hermione nodded while Ron turned pink. "Yes ma'am," he replied while Hermione beamed, "definitely."

Clione's smile wilted as she turned to Fred, who wore a funny little grin. Rolling her eyes she leaned around him and gave a sweet, "good luck George," before giving Fred a last scathing look and turning her back on him.

Fred turned wide innocent eyes to George who only shook his head and sat down.

For the first time that morning Harry had something on his mind other than the upcoming match. "Why doesn't Clione like Fred?" he asked, looking more to George. Not just because George tended to be nicer but Fred was especially mean when it came to her.

A strange expression flickered across George's face akin to guilt. "He thought it'd be funny to pull her head wrap off our first year."

Hermione sucked in an outraged gasp while Harry's eyes shot open wide. More surprising was the pink flush that bloomed on Fred's cheeks as he scowled. "I've apologized three times. How was I supposed to know a scarf could be that important?" he demanded, hiding his shame with disdain.

"It's a hijab," came Oliver's thickly accented voice as he walked quickly down the aisle between the Gryffindor and Hufflepuff tables, "and we'd had a time keeping Flint off you." He'd gathered Angelina, Katie, and Alicia who'd been sitting further up the table closer to the doors. The three boys here were the last; he should've stopped. But he kept going, his mind as well turning to something other than quidditch for the first time that day.

Clione had been aiming for Gail when she stopped by Harry, and she now happily sat at the Hufflepuff table with Gail on her right and Noemi across from them. Noemi's normally serious face was growing increasingly pink as Gail flipped through her tattered sketchbook, and Clione's eyes were darting between the two of them in sudden understanding when she felt someone brush against her back as they sat beside her. She turned expecting Cedric, who had slowly warmed to her and had even extended the first invitation to sit at Hufflepuff's table for breakfast last year. But she blinked startled at finding Oliver sitting with his back to the table and his eyes set on her.

"Don't think I didn't notice you picked a scarf with red in it," he said in a low voice, like it was only meant for her.

Her mouth opened to give a similar remark about him talking to her instead of his team on today of all days. But Gail had given her a few muggle books she'd taken from her mom that were terribly romantic, and her mouth closed. She turned towards the table and reached for her glass. "I look good in red," was her simple response.

"And you picked today to look good in it?" he asked, trying again to get her to admit it was about him.

But she set her cup down still acting like it meant nothing. "I look good in red everyday."

"That you do."

Now she turned to him and caught the heavy way he swallowed at realizing he'd said that out loud. He had the sweetest brown eyes and she just wanted to melt onto the table in a stupid grinning puddle, because he thought she looked good in red. "I'm glad you think so," she told him, her voice soft like it was only meant for him.

He could feel how red his face was, and he'd been wishing the floor would swallow him. But her eyes were now shining and the corners of her mouth were beginning to curl. Because it was for him. "I really do," he found the courage to say. It came easy on the pitch, on his broom, anywhere but with this girl and her incredibly sweet smile.

"Your team is waiting," she gently reminded him, mostly because Fred and George were behind them staring.

There were more important things that needed doing, getting his team ready to beat Slytherin was top of his list. But he reached a hand to her temple and fixed the place where a small part of the red flowered scarf was stuck in the white fitted cap she wore under it. His knuckles grazed her cheek as he pulled away. Yes, there were more important things but it was important to make time for this.

She watched him leave taking Fred, George, and Harry with him. And when she was sure he wouldn't turn back around she turned to Gail with wide eyes. "Did he just admit he likes me?" she asked not trusting herself when she'd been waiting for this for a year.

"I think he did," Gail beamed, having spent the last year watching her best friend pine after this clueless quidditch obsessed boy. "What do you think, Noemi?" Gail asked the other girl, her voice growing quiet and her face warm.

Noemi thought about it a moment before shrugging. "I still think you could do better, he's kind of annoying. And I honestly thought he'd forget about you if there was a match but," she trailed off raising a hand to where he'd been sitting a few moments before. She looked at Clione's thoughtful face as she waited for Noemi to gather her thoughts, a patience Noemi wasn't used to. She'd only befriended Clione the end of last year, and she only had because of how fiercely she adored the sweet girl next to her. "He seems to really like you."

The corner of Clione's mouth twitched as though to smile before she nodded and turned to her plate. Still getting used to having people openly care about her. "Thank you."

Seeing Clione had grown uncomfortable, as she often did when faced with affection, Gail leaned closer to her. "When you come home with me for Christmas you should ask my mom how they met. She says my dad was absolutely clueless that she liked him until she asked him out herself." She met Clione's shy eyes with an encouraging grin. "My dad always says it's because he never imagined someone as wonderful as my mom would choose him."

"I can't wait to see them again," Clione said getting her arms around Gail's shoulders. Gail's family wasn't as well off as Clione's grandparents, but they made up for it in warmth and life. Times like these, and people like these, Clione couldn't understand what her grandparents and even her housemates hatred for muggles was for.

...

After Marcus Flint lobbed a bludger into his chest sending him falling onto the pitch, Oliver woke in the hospital wing surrounded by his ecstatic teammates. His own enthusiasm at winning their first game, against Slytherin no less, was hindered by the piercing ache consuming the back of his head.

"You can discuss quidditch in the morning when he's rested. Out," Madame Pomfrey said shooing the Gryffindor team towards the door.

"Why does she get to stay?" Fred demanded when he spotted Clione, but he balked at the heated look Madame Pomfrey shot at him. Then as Angelina shoved him past Clione, knowing exactly why she was here and that this girl was the only thing that got their captain to stop talking about quidditch. She'd make Clione their mascot if she could.

"That was a splendid catch," Clione told Harry as he stepped past her.

Harry smiled giving a voracious, "thanks." He almost considered telling her that Snape cursed his broom because surely she'd have an idea why he hated Harry, but Snape might've favored her worse than Malfoy. In the end it didn't matter, her eyes quickly moved to where Oliver lay icing the back of his head.

It wasn't well known that Clione had an interest in healing magic, her favorite subjects tended to be potions and charms. But it wasn't a surprise to Oliver to see her holding out a capped vial to Madame Pomfrey.

"Professor Snape has been teaching us remedies."

"Yes, I remember your mother favoring potions as well. Give it to him with some tea, and you're out in five minutes."

Oliver waited as Clione warmed the tea with a small fire she made on the counter, watching her elegant hands crush a handful of things his vision was still too blurry to make out. He'd come to learn that she frowned slightly when she concentrated, it made her look stern and unapproachable. He liked all the faces she made, but this one he liked especially. Because when she'd turn - usually to Gail but this time it was at him - her brows would still be drawn in looking like she was angry, then a light would suddenly turn on in her dark eyes causing her brow to smooth and her mouth to smile. And heavens he loved that smile.

"You're staring," she informed him while steeping the tea.

He watched her add the tincture knowing fourth year potions didn't cover remedies. "I'm injured."

She gave a short hum indicating that she wasn't buying it, but she was letting it go. He took the tea from her with a relieved thanks and downed about half in one go. She watched his brow smooth and his tense shoulders unwind as the ache shrunk to an almost unnoticeable pinprick near the base of his skull where he'd hit the goalpost the hardest. "Professor Snape's been teaching me healing remedies. I wish he'd start back up the potions club."

Oliver hid his laugh behind the lip of his mug. She was as obsessed with learning as he was about quidditch, the two didn't quite go well together but they never ran out of things to talk about. "Is this licorice?" he asked tasting familiar spices he couldn't quite place.

"Root, yes. And turmeric and clove. The licorice is to help your stomach, the healing potion does wonders only for your head."

"Clever," he mumbled, wondering what else was in it because he was suddenly very tired.

There was a lot more she would've told him, that she wanted to tell him because he'd always made her feel comfortable enough for her to consider talking about her mom. But his eyes were getting heavy and there was something else he would rather talk about. "So, your first match as captain ended not only in victory but with possibly the greatest catch this school has ever seen."

"We're so gonna win the quidditch cup this year. We've got the best team in the school, maybe ever. Now we've got to train harder, we can't let this win make us soft." And on he went for an additional two minutes of his entire plan from here, which he wouldn't remember when he woke and Clione didn't fully catch because his words had begun to slur. But he did eventually tire himself out enough that he needed to take a breath. He looked up at her pretty face and her pretty smile, and he thought she was just really really pretty. "You don't like quidditch." It wasn't a question.

"No," she agreed softly. Catching movement out of the corner of her eye she looked down seeing he'd laid his hand in the bed palm up next to where she stood. Slowly, timidly, she placed her hand in his feeling his calloused fingers close around it.

"You like me."

She looked back to his heavy-lidded eyes and sleepy grin, and she could've kissed him right there. "It took you long enough."

His chest jolted with a small laugh as his eyes closed. "Ilikeyoutoo," came out in a mumbled, garbled, rush of air. But she understood the sentiment.

She stood a moment longer holding his clammy hand and staring at his slack jawed face as he snored softly. "Sorry we went over five minutes," she told Madame Pomfrey, who humphed her mild displeasure.

"I didn't say you could stay to flirt with the boy."

Letting go of his hand she smoothed out the wrinkled sheet covering him. And with a quick peek over her shoulder to make sure Madame Pomfrey wasn't looking, Clione bent pressing a quick kiss to his warm brow.

She threw the end of her scarf back over her shoulder and hurried out of the hospital wing before she was asked to organize the healing potions Madame Pomfrey had in stock. She couldn't wait to find Gail and tell her everything.