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JUNE, 2007
Danny and Lydia’s letters come on a sunny Thursday afternoon in the middle of June. Lydia isn’t surprised, per se, she’s known that she would get one for as long as she can remember, but it doesn’t stop her from squealing with glee, and ripping it open the moment the unfamiliar snowy owl drops it into her hands. She feels warm from the top of her head to the tips of her toes, as if she’d just drank an entire mug of butterbeer in one gulp, and when she looks up at her best friend beside her, his smile matches hers. Finally, after over eleven years of waiting, their time has come. She looks back down at the letter, and even though she’s seen both of her parents and Danny’s parents’ letters - read them so many times that she’s had them memorized for years - she still runs her fingers over the beautiful calligraphy, noting where the ink has smudged, where it’s different from the others she’s seen, and she still reads the words over and over until they start to blur together. Next to her, Danny is whispering to himself, as if he can hardly believe this is happening.
“Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry.
Headmistress: Talia Hale
(Order of Merlin, First Class, Grand Sorc., Chf. Witch, Supreme Mugwump, INternational Confed. of Wizards.)
Dear Mr. Mahealani,
We are pleased to inform you that you have been accepted at Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry. Please find enclosed a list of all necessary books and equipment.”
Lydia cuts him off there, although she could have quoted along with the rest if it by memory if she wanted to.
“It’s really happening, isn’t it?”
A grin lights up Danny’s face as he looks up from the letter grasped tightly in his trembling fingers. “Yeah,” he says, looking happier than she can ever remember seeing him. “Yeah, it really is.”
********
SEPTEMBER, 2007
They’re on the Hogwarts Express, talking about what the castle is going to be like when the compartment door is flung open by a very excited looking boy with buzzed hair and pale skin that’s positively covered in moles. He’s followed by a dark haired boy with a slightly crooked jaw and wide, almost puppy like eyes. They’re clearly first years too, judging by the fact that they’ve both already changed into their black robes but don’t have their brightly colored house ties around their necks.
“...so that’s what I’m hoping for,” says buzzcut boy to the other one, clearly in the middle of a conversation, not even noticing that there are people in the compartment already. “Although I guess Ravenclaw wouldn’t be too bad either.”
“I, uh, I don’t know what that means,” says the other boy, shyly pushing his too long hair out of his eyes. Lydia feels an urge to pat him on the head and tell him everything will be okay.
Before buzzcut boy has a chance to say anything, Danny interrupts them.
“Uh, no offence, but what are you doing here?”
“Oh, sorry!” says buzzcut boy, looking from Danny to Lydia and back. “All the other compartments are full. Can we sit here with you?”
Danny looks at Lydia, eyebrows raised. She shrugs and offers him a half smile, and Danny turns back to the boys. “Yeah, go ahead. I’m Danny by the way, and this is Lydia.”
“No way,” says buzzcut boy, staring at Lydia, his mouth hanging open. “Lydia Martin?”
“Who are you then?” asks Lydia, crossing her arms over her chest. She’s not sure if she likes this boy or not.
“Oh, sorry!” he says, holding out one slightly sticky hand. Lydia shakes it for as short a time as she possibly can and slips her hand into her pocket directly afterwards, trying to discreetly wipe it off on the inside fabric of her robe. “Stiles. Stiles Stilinski.”
“Who names their child Stiles Stilinksi?" asks Danny.
“My first name's Polish," says Stiles, trying to wave one hand casually and nearly hitting his poor friend in the face. "Completely unpronounceable. But anyways -" he leans forward, resting his elbows on his knees, and says the next part as if it's the name of a celebrity. "- my mom was Claudia Budziszewski.”
“Bless you,” say Danny and Lydia in unison.
“It’s Polish,” says Stiles.
“It sounds like someone just fell asleep on a keyboard when they were trying to think it up,” says Danny, and Lydia giggles.
“So you don’t know about her then?” asks Stiles, crossing his arms over his chest.
“Should I?”
“Uh, my mom and your mom were apparently best friends at Hogwarts. I don’t think your mom approved of her marrying a Muggleborn though.”
Lydia would like to deny that, but knowing her mother, she’s sure it has at least has some truth to it. Even so, that’s a member of her family that that he’s insulting, and she can’t just sit back and take it.
“I’m sure that’s not true,” says Lydia, crossing her arms over her chest. “They must have just grown apart or something.”
“Maybe,” says Stiles, his arms crossed too.
Danny looks from Stiles to Lydia, both of whom are now frowning and looking out the window at the fields flashing by.
“What’s your name?” he asks, leaning forward to talk to puppy boy, hoping it will at least decrease the tension in the compartment.
“Scott,” says the boy quietly, reaching out to take Danny’s hand. “Scott McCall.”
Lydia, never one to forget her manners, sighs and takes Scott’s hand as well, surprised to find it much cooler and less sweaty than Stiles’. She finds herself never wanting to let go, and she jerks her hand away before she lets that thought get any further.
“What do your parents do, Scott?” asks Danny, leaning forward, resting his elbows on his knees. Lydia knows that his way of trying to subtly ask what Scott’s blood status is, and she’s thankful that he said it so she didn’t have to.
“Oh, my mom’s a nurse,” says Scott, his face lighting up at the mention of his family. “She’s amazing.”
“That’s like a healer, yeah?” asks Danny, and Scott’s face crumples in confusion.
“Uh, yeah, I think so. She helps sick people and stuff.”
“That’s so cool,” says Danny, grinned.
“What about your dad?” asks Lydia, leaning forward too.
“Oh, he left when I was really little,” says Scott, frowning. “Mom said he was a police officer though.”
Lydia doesn’t know what that is, but she does know that it’s strictly a Muggle profession.
“So you’re Muggleborn then,” she says, more as a statement than a question, but Scott answers anyways.
“Yeah, I guess so.”
Stiles, never one to not give his opinion on something, a fact that Lydia had figured out within five seconds of meeting him, chooses this moment to join the conversation too. “My dad’s one of the best Aurors at the ministry.”
He says nothing about his mother, and Lydia doesn’t ask.
“Right, Stilinski, I knew that name sounded familiar,” says Danny, and Lydia is once again thankful that he spoke so she didn’t have to. “My dad’s an Unspeakable. You know Elikai Mahealani?”
Stiles grins. “Yeah, I think we had him for dinner one time last year after the thing with Quidditch World Cup.”
The two boys take this as a good excuse to start a lively discussion about Quidditch, complete with large, sweeping hand movements, and shouting about their favorite teams - Stiles’ being The Chudley Cannons and Danny’s being the Tutshill Tornados.
Scott is clearly attempting to follow, and failing. Lydia simply doesn’t care, having heard Danny talk about Quidditch one too many times, but she quickly takes pity on the dark haired boy.
“So what house do you want to be?” she asks, getting up and squishing her way onto the seat between him and Stiles, who’s still talking about one of the amazing goals that someone on the Cannons had scored at the last game.
“Oh, uh, I don’t know,” says Scott, picking at a fraying spot in his robes. They look second hand, but being that he’s the first to come to Hogwarts from a non magical family, so they clearly can’t be a hand-me-down, Lydia can’t figure out why. “I don’t really know what they are.”
Lydia knows that her mother would never approve of her “fraternizing with a boy like that,” but she can’t really make herself care. “Well, there’s Gryffindor,” she starts, pulling her legs up in front of her and crossing them, so she’s sitting sideways on the bench, facing Scott directly.
“Oh, Stiles says that was his dad’s house!”
“They’re known for being brave, if a little impulsive and thoughtless at times,” she says, pulling her wand from her pocket and absentmindedly beginning to fix the holes in his robe as she speaks, “Reparo,” being one of the first simple spells her mother had taught her before she left. It’s not as effective or long lasting on cloth as the sewing spell, but she still hasn’t quite figured out the wand movement for that.
“Then there’s Hufflepuff,” she continues, jabbing her wand at a small hole between his collar and shoulder. “Reparo. And they’re kind and loyal, but people say they’re also kind of pushovers. And Ravenclaw, who are smart - reparo - but a little tactless.”
“And Slithering?” asks Scott, leaning forward, giving her his complete attention, even with all the shouting going on beside them. Lydia feels that same sense of warmth she got when her Hogwarts letter arrived, and she doesn’t know why.
“Slytherin,” she says with a giggle. “That’s my family’s house, we’ve been in it for generations. People like to say they’re evil, or that they’re going to betray you, but really they’re just ambitious and don’t apologize for their flaws. At least, that’s what my mom always says. Scourgify,” she adds, pointing at a strange looking stain on his cuff. It fades, even if it doesn’t vanish completely, and Scott looks up at her with a wide grin.
“Wow,” he says, but his smile quickly vanishes when a new thought strikes him. “But what if I’m not any of those things? What if they try to sort me and they realize that I don’t actually belong here and send me home?”
Lydia smiles. “Don’t worry, this school’s been open for thousands of years, and no one’s ever been kicked out on their first day, I don’t know why they’d start now.”
Scott’s face splits into his wide smile, and Lydia’s stomach flutters.
“Thanks, Lydia,” he says, eyes shining. “I’m so glad I’m already making friends here.”
Lydia is relieved that the food cart arrives just then, and she can start digging in her trunk for her money to hide the blush on her cheeks and the smile she can’t stop from stretching across her face.
********
The castle is even more amazing than Lydia ever could have imagined, with sparkling windows and a giant lake and towers that reach high into the sky. She’s seen paintings and photos of Hogwarts, but none of them had done it justice. It is, without a doubt, the most beautiful thing Lydia has ever seen, and she takes Danny’s hand in hers and squeezes it tightly, feeling as if her smile is going to split her face in half.
Surely, she thinks, this is the best thing that’s ever happened to her. She gets to spend the next seven years in a beautiful castle, learning magic from the most accomplished witches and wizards in the world, with her best friend by her side and, hopefully, many new friends in her future. She turns to Danny, eyes bright and cheeks flushed, and he turns back, grinning just as wide as she is. Lydia is sure that nothing could ruin this night.
Lydia is happy, even as she and Danny get pushed into a tiny boat with a tiny, curly haired boy and a behemoth who looks to already be approaching six feet, even at the age of eleven. She is happy as they ride in the boat across the lake, even as the water splashes up and soaks her robes and her new shoes. She is happy even as they meet the school’s poltergeist, Peeves. She is a little nervous, but still happy, as Deputy Headmaster Deaton meets them in the Entrance Hall, dries them off with a flick of his wand, and tells them that the sorting ceremony will start in just a moment.
Finally, the doors to the Great Hall open, the chatter inside dies down, and the first years are ushered in, all gasping and looking around in amazement at the room.
“The ceiling’s enchanted,” whispers Lydia to everyone who will listen to her, which turns out to just be Danny and the tiny curly haired boy who had sat with them in the boat. “It reflects the sky outside.”
“Wow,” whispers the boy, staring upwards, just as a crash of thunder shakes the hall, and a bolt of lightning flashes across the ceiling. Lydia smirks, but she squeezes Danny’s hand again, not having let go since before they got in the boats. She’s more than a little nervous for the sorting, even though she knows she’ll be in Slytherin, just like her mother before her, and her mother’s mother, and her mother’s mother’s mother, all the way back to Salazar Slytherin himself. She hopes Danny will be in Slytherin with her, but she’s not sure. His father was in Slytherin, but his mother was in Ravenclaw, and Danny has always been smart for his age. Lydia is so busy thinking that she doesn’t even notice that everyone has gone completely silent around her, until an old tattered hat on the stool at the front of the hall opens wide at a rip in its brim, and begins to sing. It has a surprisingly good voice, for a hat, and Lydia enjoys its tale of the founding of the school and the four houses, even if she just wants it to be over with so the sorting can begin. She applauds politely with the rest of the students when the song ends, and then, finally, Professor Deaton steps forward, lifts the hat in the air, and the sorting begins.
Lydia grows increasingly antsy as the sorting goes on, tapping her feet impatiently as the sorting hat makes its decisions. The sorting goes slowly, with only a few people really standing out. Two twins are called fairly close to the beginning of it, and while Aiden Deucalion is sorted into Slytherin before the hat even touches his head, it takes what feels like forever before it finally decides to put Ethan into Gryffindor. Lydia can see Aiden glaring from the Slytherin table as Ethan takes his seat next to a tall, dark haired boy who’s wearing a golden badge on the front of his robes. The hat takes almost as long as it had with Aiden to sort the behemoth Greenberg who’d been in their boat into Gryffindor, and even longer to sort the tiny curly haired boy from the boat, Isaac Lahey, into Hufflepuff. It seems to take hours, but surely can’t have been more than thirty minutes when Professor Deaton finally steps forward and calls Danny’s name. Lydia squeezes his hand one last time before letting go, and he makes his way up to the front, hands shaking slightly, but showing no other sign of his nerves.
The hat deliberates on him for seven minutes and thirty three nervewracking seconds, that Lydia counts out slowly in her head to distract herself from the fact that she knows she’s next. People start to whisper around minute six, and when the hat finally shouts out “Ravenclaw!” Lydia lets out a sigh. She barely has a chance to be sad that her best friend will not be in her house though, before her name is called and she pushes her way through the crowd of first years to the front.
The hat slips down over her eyes, and she is thankful that she can no longer see all the students in the hall staring up at her. There is silence for a moment before she hears a voice in her ear, and she jumps slightly in surprise.
“Another Martin, hmm?” says the voice that Lydia knows must be the hat. It sounds so different speaking than it did singing. “Daughter of Natalie Baxter and Stephain Martin, no doubt, granddaughter of Lorraine Gaunt and Edmund Martin. All Slytherin, Slytherin, Slytherin, Slytherin... But what to do with you?” it continues thoughtfully. “You’re brave, very brave, but far too cautious for Gryffindor. Loyal too, and hardworking. You’d make a fine Hufflepuff.”
“Slytherin, please, Slytherin,” thinks Lydia, fingers gripping the edge of the stool tightly.
Clearly, the hat can hear her, because it chuckles in her ear, low and not entirely comforting. “You are quite ambitious, aren’t you? And cunning too, can’t deny that.But I can’t help thinking you’d be better suited elsewhere.”
“Please, Slytherin, please,” thinks Lydia desperately. Her fingers are beginning to go numb from how tightly she’s clutching her seat. “My family’s been in Slytherin for generations, they’ll disown me if I’m anywhere else.”
The hat laughs again, louder this time, and Lydia feels sure that the whole hall must have heard it. “That would be the logical thing to do. And you’d know about logic and cleverness, wouldn’t you Lydia Martin?”
“I don’t-” begins Lydia, but the hat cuts her off.
“With a mind like yours, better be Ravenclaw!”
It shouts the last word out to the hall, and Lydia feels the hat being lifted off her head, the light of the Great Hall around her hitting her eyes, but she feels as if she’s suddenly gone deaf. The hall is so quiet you could hear a pin drop, and she’s sure she’s just in shock from the hat’s decision until she sees that absolutely no one is talking. All four tables are staring at her in shock, and she can’t blame them. Everyone knows the Martins. Everyone knows they’re one of the oldest pureblood families in the UK, rivaled only by the Gaunts, and everyone knows that they’re always Slytherins.
It feels like several years pass as she sits up there on that tiny little wooden stool, hundreds of students staring at her, mouths open, surely already drafting the letters to their parents about this in their heads. She’s beginning to feel a little lightheaded, when a single cheer comes from somewhere at the Ravenclaw table. She looks over, and locks eyes with Danny as he stands up and begins clapping, and before long it spreads through the hall, almost everyone clapping, even if it is a little hesitantly.
Finally, Lydia stands up off the stool, makes her way over to the Ravenclaw table, and collapses onto a bench between Danny and Cora Hale, wishing she could disappear into the ground forever.
********
The only bright sides to Lydia’s evening are knowing she’ll be with Danny even if the rest of her family disowns her, and third year boy who walks with them to the dorms, high in a tower on the west side of the castle. He introduces himself as Jordan Parrish, and Lydia feels a little breathless as she looks into his bright green eyes. The other girls clearly feel the same way, and even Danny looks a little swoony.
“Sorry, normally it should be a prefect doing this,” he says, glancing over his shoulder at the first years following him. All the girls immediately stop fixing their hair and stand up a little straighter. “But my cousin’s got spattergroit right now, so he’s going to be a bit late getting here and he asked me to fill in until Professor Hale can pick a replacement for him.” He grimaces, and Lydia can tell who’s Muggleborn and who isn’t by who grimaces too. Spattergroit is widely known as one of the most unpleasant wizarding maladies, and almost anyone who’d spent any time in the wizarding world would have known about it.
“Is he going to be okay?” asks one of the other first years, a blonde girl who Lydia doesn’t recognize. Her voice is high and breathy, and Lydia hates her already. She slips her hand back into Danny’s and squeezes tightly.
“Yeah, it’s apparently not too bad,” says Parrish, leading them up a staircase hidden behind a tapestry of a wizard wearing a tiara with a diamond the size of Lydia’s fist in the middle of it.
“Hey, watch it!” protests the tapestry, and a few of the students - the ones who hadn’t flinched when Parrish mentioned spattergroit - start at the noise.
“Aunt Eleanor says he’s getting better already, he just needs another week or two I think,” says Parrish, ignoring the tapestry completely. “Anyways, enough about me, do you all have any questions?”
“Are you single?” asks the blonde girl, and Lydia cringes again. Parrish seems to take it in stride though, and just laughs it off.
“I am, yeah. Don’t have time for dating with Quidditch season coming up though.”
The blonde looks a little put out, as do most of the girls in the group, and Lydia rolls her eyes, even if she’s a little upset too. The other girls don’t need to know that. She refuses to show them any weakness.
The rest of the trip is taken up by the Muggleborns asking various questions that Lydia barely manages to not roll her eyes at, and Parrish answering each of them calmly and politely, something that Lydia’s sure she wouldn’t have been able to do. They finally reach the tower though, and Parrish turns around, cutting off the blonde girl mid-question.
“Sorry, I promise I’ll answer more of your questions tomorrow,” he says, before gesturing at the door. “So this is the entrance to the common room. The other three houses have passwords, but we do things a little differently here.”
He reaches up and knocks on the door three times with the large bronze door knocker in the shape of an eagle.
“There is a house,” squawks the eagle, its mouth opening wide. “One enters blind and comes out seeing. What is it?”
The first years all mutter amongst themselves for a few moments, but it is Danny who figures it out first.
“Well that’s a school, isn’t it?”
The eagle squawks, “Correct!” and the door swings open, revealing a large, airy room with midnight blue carpets and light blue and gold armchairs scattered around it. Parrish grins at Danny, who looks at his feet, cheeks flushed. Even Lydia manages a faint smile.
The smile doesn’t last long though, and by the time Lydia gets to her room, which she shares with Cora Hale, the blonde girl who is apparently named Heather, and two others who seem alright but who haven’t spoken much, Lydia is ready to strangle someone. She’s tempted to ask if she can just stay in the boy’s dorm with Danny, but she promised herself she wouldn’t show weakness, and if anything showed weakness, that would. Instead, she forces a fake smile onto her face, answers Heather’s million questions, and changes into her pajamas as quickly as possible. She is just considering telling Heather that she has a headache and needs to go to sleep when one of the other girls, who Lydia thinks she heard called Danielle, says, “Heather, shut up, can’t you tell she’s sick of answering your questions?”
“Oh!” squeaks Heather, and Lydia almost kisses Danielle. “Sorry Lydia! You just seem so smart and cool, I hope we can be friends!”
“Of course we can,” says Lydia, her forced smile really more a grimace now than a grin. “Can’t wait.”
Heather squeals and hugs her, and Lydia once again wonders if sinking into the floor forever is an option.
********
The letter comes the next morning. Lydia can’t say she was expecting it - doesn’t even know how her mother found out so quickly - but as soon as she spots the tawny owl fly into the hall while Heather babbles away happily on her left and Danny sits staring at Parrish on her right, she gets the sinking feeling that it’s meant for her. The bird lands on the rim of the jug of pumpkin juice in front of her, holding out its leg and dipping its head into the jug to drink, and Lydia takes the red envelope from it gingerly, not quite sure what to do with it.
“...and of course, when I first got it, I thought, ‘this must be some sort of joke,’ right? Like, Hogwarts, how ridiculous does that sound. But anyways, then-” Heather pauses mid sentence as she notices the letter that Lydia holds in shaking hands. “What’s that?”
Danny jerks his gaze away from Parrish to look at Lydia, whose eyes are wide, and face completely white. “Is that-” he asks, not even bothering to finish his question. They both know exactly what it is. Even so, Lydia nods numbly, face frozen.
“You’d better open it,” says Danny, taking her hand. “It’ll only explode if you don’t.”
“Wait, there are exploding letters now?” asks Heather, but neither Danny or Lydia deign her with a response as Lydia slowly starts peeling open her family’s wax seal. “I mean, I knew there were-”
Heather is cut off again by an explosion of sound, the moment the seal is completely broken.
“LYDIA LORRAINE MARTIN, HOW DARE YOU SHAME OUR FAMILY IN THIS WAY?” screams the letter, and Lydia flinches backwards, dropping it into her now soggy bowl of cereal. It rises out of it, arranging itself into an almost face like shape, and continues screaming. “I EXPECTED BETTER OF YOU! YOU KNOW FULL WELL THAT THE MARTINS AND THE GAUNTS HAVE BEEN IN SLYTHERIN SINCE THE VERY BEGINNING OF HOGWARTS, AND I NEVER THOUGHT THAT YOU COULD POSSIBLY BETRAY US LIKE THIS. YOUR FATHER AND I HAVE HALF A MIND TO BRING YOU STRAIGHT BACK HOME AND TEACH YOU A LITTLE MORE ABOUT THE IMPORTANCE OF FAMILY, BECAUSE CLEARLY YOU KNOW NOTHING ABOUT IT. I HAVE NEVER BEEN THIS DISAPPOINTED IN MY LIFE, AND I EXPECT YOU TO GET YOURSELF INTO SLYTHERIN IMMEDIATELY, OR YOU WILL NOT BE WELCOME BACK IN MY HOME FOR CHRISTMAS. DON’T BOTHER WRITING BACK UNLESS IT’S WITH GOOD NEWS.”
The letter shreds itself into Lydia’s bowl, leaving the Great Hall is echoingly silent for a moment before it explodes into whispers. Lydia’s face has gone from entirely white to entirely red in a matter of seconds, and she ducks her head, hair falling in her eyes. “Lydia?” asks Danny quietly, squeezing her hand gently. “You okay?”
“I have to... I’ll just, uh, I’ll see you in class,” whispers Lydia, and even though she keeps her hair over her face, she can’t hide the crack in her voice as she gets up from her seat and walks quickly out of the hall, everyone’s eyes following her, cereal still sitting on the table, uneaten and full of bits of shredded parchment. Danny gets up to follow her, but by the time he makes it out to the Entrance Hall, Lydia has vanished.
********
Danny looks everywhere he can think of while he looks for Lydia, but he still doesn’t know the castle very well, and he’s resigned himself to not seeing her until their first class that afternoon when she comes marching into the Great Hall during lunch, head held high, a strange smile on her face. To anyone else, she would look like the picture of self confidence, but Danny knows her better than that, and he knows for a fact that that’s her “I look like I think I’m better than you because I’m trying not to cry,” smile. The hall falls silent the moment she walks in, and Danny wants to scream at them to stop it, that she’s only eleven, that she doesn’t deserve this kind of treatment, but he wasn’t put in Gryffindor for a reason, so he keeps his mouth shut and waits for her to sit down next to him.
“Hey,” he says quietly, placing his hand over hers on the table, glad that Heather had disappeared a few hours previously, declaring she was going out to explore the grounds with her friend Danielle. “How are you?”
“I’m fine,” she says tersely, yanking her hand out from under his so she can lift up a bowl of potatoes and pull it closer to her, piling them onto her plate. “Why wouldn’t I be?”
“I just thought... with the letter and everything?”
Lydia laughs shrilly, and it sounds a little unstable, even to her own ears. “Oh, that?” she asks, pouring herself a glass of pumpkin juice. “You know mother, she’s always freaking out about tiny things like that. She’ll have completely forgotten about it by tomorrow.” She starts shoving the potatoes into her mouth, hoping that it will dissuade Danny from asking her anything else.
He opens his mouth, eyebrows pushed together in worry, but Lydia shoots him a sharp look, and even if it would have been more effective had her cheeks not been bulging with roast potatoes, he shuts his mouth quickly. “Right,” he finally mutters. “I’m sure she will be.”
Even if Lydia’s mother is going to forget about it by the quickly, which Danny still isn’t convinced of, the rest of the school does not. Their potions class that afternoon gives Lydia the exact same treatment that the Great Hall had, falling silent the moment they enter the room, but Lydia just continues to ignore them, grabbing Danny’s wrist tightly and dragging him to an empty table.
“I would tell you all to quiet down, but clearly that’s unnecessary,” comes a voice from the front of the classroom, and thirty round faces turn in unison to look. “I am Professor Harris, and I will be your potions teacher for the next-”
He is cut off by a loud bang as the door to the dungeon classroom flies open, revealing a red faced and panting Scott McCall, his bright yellow Hufflepuff tie crooked and poorly tied. Lydia can’t even pretend to be surprised.
“Is there a problem?” asks Professor Harris, and Scott’s cheeks turn even redder, if that’s even possible.
“Sorry, Professor,” huffs Scott. “Got lost. Ended up by the Charms classroom.”
Lydia knows for a fact that the Gryffindors and Slytherins have Charms right now, and she’s sure that Scott’s tardiness is less to do with getting lost and more to do with getting distracted and accidentally walking to class with Stiles, who’d been put in Slytherin the moment the sorting hat touched his head.
“Just take a seat,” grumbles Professor Harris, and Scott sighs in relief, slipping forward through the class and sitting down at Lydia’s table, on the opposite side of Danny to her. She tries to ignore the way her heart flips in her chest. “As I was saying,” continues Harris, as if Scott hadn’t interrupted at all. “I will be your potions teacher for at least the next five years, and maybe more, depending on if you choose to pursue a potions N.E.W.T.”
“Newt?” whispers Scott in confusion. Lydia is about to reply when Professor Harris stops speaking, his eyes fixed on Scott again.
“Do you have something you’d like to share with the class Mr...?”
“McCall,” says Scott. “Scott McCall. Uh, I was just wondering what newts are? I mean, besides the obvious."
There's an awkward chuckle that makes its way around the class, but Professor Harris' glare quickly silences it.
"McCall, hmm? Haven't heard that name before. Tell me, Scott McCall, what do your parents do?"
"My mom's a nurse," says Scott, crossing his arms over his chest and frowning. "But I don't see what that-"
"So she's a Muggle then, yes?"
"Well yes, but I still don't-"
"It just goes to show," continues Harris with a sneer. "That sometimes even the most... Unfortunate of stereotypes have a basis in fact. Five points from Hufflepuff. Now open your textbooks to page 173, we'll be reading about basic theory today."
Lydia wants to say something, and she can tell that at the least, Danny and the tiny Asian girl that Scott had been sitting with at breakfast that morning want to say something as well, but none of them are willing to risk getting detention on their first day, so Lydia just settles for a displeased frown and a terse, "No, sir," when Professor Harris asks if she too has something to share with the class.
The class is avoiding the gaze of both Lydia and Scott now, and Danny by association, so she shouldn't really be surprised when he corners her after class.
"Lydia! Hey, Lydia!" he calls after her as she leaves with Danny.
"Yes?" she asks, spinning on her heel.
"I just, uh, I wanted to make sure... I mean, after this morning and everything... Are you okay?"
Lydia rolls her eyes, furiously fighting the smile she can feel pulling at the corners of her mouth. "I'm fine," she snaps. She's not blushing, it was just really warm in the classroom. And if she is blushing, it's not because of the fact that Scott was the only one besides Danny who cared enough to ask if she was okay, it's leftover second hand embarrassment from that awful scene at the beginning of the class.
"Oh, okay," says Scott. He looks legitimately disappointed that she shut him down like that, and she wants to hold him close and tell him how sorry she is, over and over and over. "I'll just see you later then."
"Right," says Lydia, turning back around and grabbing Danny's arm, dragging him down the hallway with her and out of sight of Scott, who's still standing in front of the door to the classroom. If she holds onto Danny's arm a little too tightly to stop herself from running back to him and apologizing, or, even worse, crying great big tears of shame, no one else needs to know that.
********
OCTOBER, 2007
Lydia keeps telling Danny that everything’s okay, and he’s not sure if he believes her or not, but she gives him no reason not to, so he just goes with it. There’s no doubt she’s acting a bit strange, but she’s not acting like there’s anything specifically wrong, so Danny thinks that maybe she just needs some time to get used to things.
Lydia’s always been quick to adjust though, and by the the beginning of October, she’s already first in almost all of her classes. She hasn’t quite gotten the hang of Potions yet, but neither has anyone else in the class besides Danny, who somehow managed to actually get on Harris’ good side. There isn’t a lot of room on his good side though, so everyone else seems to be stuck trying to make their way into his good graces, and thereby trying to make their way to good grades. Scott especially is stuck just below a passing grade, and Professor Harris has taken points from Hufflepuff two more times already, both times because he made simple errors in his potions that half the class had managed to make as well. Lydia and Danny managed to hold their tongues both times, but it’s been getting significantly harder each time, and the third time it happens, Danny snaps.
“Are you serious?” he shouts when Harris takes ten more points from Hufflepuff because Scott confused eye of newt with eye of toad, causing a rotten egg like stink to rise from his cauldron.
Every eye in the class turns to Danny, and he shrinks back into his chair, blushing. “I mean, uh, no disrespect sir, but that’s not really worth taking points for, is it?” he asks, voice quiet.
“Five points from Ravenclaw, Mr. Mahealani,” says Professor Harris cooly. “And the next time you feel the need to question my teaching style, it will be fifty!”
Danny turns back to his cauldron, face bright red, and Harris turns back to the class, glaring at everyone else, as if daring them to complain. “Anyone else have anything to say?”
The students turn back to their work quickly, shuffling things in an attempt to make busy.
“I didn’t think so.”
Danny is so angry, his hands are shaking. He clenches his fists, trying to calm down, but in his frustration, he manages to misread the instructions for the potion, and without even thinking about it, he puts two tablespoons dried flobberworms into the cauldron, instead of two teaspoons. Before he even has a chance to realize what he did wrong, the potion is boiling over, letting out a giant cloud of grey smoke, covering his face in soot. He jumps backwards, coughing, and collides directly with Professor Harris. He doesn’t normally look happy, but he looks significantly less happy than usual, and Danny quickly takes a step away from him.
“I’m, uh, I’m really sorry sir, I didn’t-”
“Detention, Mr. Mahealani,” snaps Professor Harris. “And another ten points from Ravenclaw.”
He sweeps away before Danny even has a chance to reply, leaving him covered in soot that is slowly turning an odd greenish color and surrounded in spilled potion. Danny is thankful that at least the soot on his face is hiding his flushed cheeks.
********
Danny returns late that night, hands cramped and back aching from hours spent scrubbing every inch of Professor Harris’ classroom that he could find, and then re-scrubbing them when Harris decided they weren’t quite clean enough. It’s well after midnight by the time he gets to the common room, and he’s ready to just go straight upstairs and collapse into bed when he sees a sheet of strawberry blonde hair spread out over one of the tables next to the most comfortable armchair by the fire.
“Lydia?” he asks, taking a tentative step forward.
“Hmm?” she mumbles, shifting slightly in her sleep.
“Lydia,” he says again, louder.
Lydia jerks awake, sitting up quickly, a few pieces of parchment sticking to her cheek. They peel off as she glances around, disoriented, eyes finally locking on Danny.
“Danny,” she sighs, rubbing at one of her eyes. “You scared me. Shouldn’t you be at your detention?”
“Lyds, it’s after midnight.”
Lydia starts at that. “After midnight? But I thought it was only eight, I swear, it was eight like five minutes ago, I have to get this potions essay done two hours ago.” She shifts the parchment she was sleeping on around, shoving one piece under another and beginning to scribble furiously.
Danny pulls the parchment out from under her quill and studies it carefully. “Lydia, Harris only assigned this today, it’s not due until November.”
“I know, I know, but I’ve got to get my transfiguration essay done too, and Harris said he’d give me extra credit if I turned it in by next week, and I only have an E in that class, and if I get an O in all of my classes then maybe-” She freezes, as if she’s just realized what she’s saying.
“I just want to get good grades, okay?”
Danny puts the essay back down on her table, and as he’s doing so, something catches his eye.
“Lydia, what’s that?” he asks, pointing at the piece of parchment that she had pushed under the essay when she’d realized what time it was.
She glances down, looking at what he’s noticed, and pushes the parchment completely out of view. “What’s what?”
There’s a brief scuffle over the piece of parchment, but Danny comes out victorious, holding it over his head as Lydia tries to grab at it.
“Now, let’s see what you were trying so hard to hide Miss Martin. A love letter to a certain green eyed third year perhaps? Or maybe one for the handsome Transfiguration teacher. Or maybe it’s-”
He stops talking as he looks down at the parchment clutched in his hand and gets a chance to read more than the first word.
“-a letter to your mother?” he asks, brow furrowed, looking back up at Lydia. “Why would you want to hide this?”
She sighs and flops backwards into here recently vacated armchair, eyes suspiciously bright. “Just read it.”
Danny sits down in the chair across from hers, returning his gaze to the letter. Not quite sure what to expect, he starts reading.
Dear Mother, it says.
I hope you’re well. I don’t know if you’ve gotten my last few letters. I think the owl you got me might be poorly trained, so I’m sending this one with Danny’s, I’m sure he won’t mind. Maybe we can go shopping for a new one at Christmas.
Classes are going well. I’ve got an O in almost all of my classes, and my Potions grade is going up quickly, so that should be an O soon too. Professor Hale still says she’s sure of her decision, but you always told me that true Slytherins never give up, so I don’t plan on stopping asking any time soon.
I haven’t
The words stop there, the last one cut off by what Danny hopes is just a drop of water, but probably isn’t, if the fact that Lydia’s eyes are bloodshot and her nails are chewed down to the quick - something she only does when she’s trying not to cry - are anything to go by.
“Lydia...” Danny whispers. He’s not sure why he’s whispering, but it seems appropriate, given the situation. He can’t stop thinking about the last time he sat next to her reading a letter, and wishes they could go back to that, before everything got messed up. “This is...” He pauses, trying to figure out what to ask first. “What was Professor Hale’s decision?”
Lydia takes in a huge gulp of air, almost desperately, blinking rapidly, and her thumb returns to her lips almost immediately. She gnaws at her nail, a pensive look on her face, and it takes her so long to speak that Danny wonders if he should repeat his question.
When she finally speaks, her voice is quiet and muffled by her hand. “The Sorting Hat’s decision is always final. I mean, it makes sense I guess, since it can see into your mind and everything, but you’d think after thousands of years of this, it would have at least a few mistakes, right?”
“Spoken like a true Ravenclaw.”
The words are out of Danny’s mouth before he even has a chance to think about them, but once he does he knows they’re true.
“Danny, you don’t understand,” says Lydia, and her voice is high and desperate. “I’m a Slytherin, that’s it for me. I /have/ to be a Slytherin.”
“Lydia, you said it yourself, your mom freaks out about everything, I’m sure she’ll-”
“She hasn’t talked to me since the Howler, Danny!” screams Lydia, grabbing onto the arms of the chair and leaning forward. Her outburst is over as quickly as it had started though, and she slumps backwards in her chair, moving her hand up to run it through her hair, smoothing it back, away from her face. “Not a single letter,” she chokes out, her voice breaking.
“But... But you write to her all the time.”
“Once a week,” says Lydia, slumping forward. “One letter a week for a month and a half and she still hasn’t written back.”
“Lydia,” says Danny, leaning forward to rest on hand on her knee, not quite sure what else to do. “I’m so-”
She cuts him off, as if she can’t even hear him. “I asked Professor Hale. That first day, when I disappeared after the Howler arrived. I went up to her office and asked if I could be resorted. She said that the Sorting Hat’s decision was final but that I was more than welcome to talk to it if I wanted to know more about why it sorted me the way it did.”
“And?” asks Danny.
“And it told me it’s never seen a mind like mine. So I thought maybe if I could prove to mother that I belonged in Ravenclaw then she’d finally accept it. But...” she trails off, but Danny knows exactly what she’s thinking.
“But she still hasn’t written back.
“But she still hasn’t written back,” says Lydia, voice low and defeated.
Danny doesn’t really know how to reply to that, so he just leans forward and pulls Lydia to him, holding her close and pretending he can’t feel the wet spot growing on the shoulder of his robes. It’s a little awkward, and Danny is getting a crick in his neck, but he can feel Lydia’s fingers on his back, devoid of their usual perfectly manicured nails, holding onto him tighter than she ever has, and he knows he can’t let go. He doesn’t know if they sit like that for five minutes, or twenty minutes or an hour, but by the time Lydia pulls away, hastily wiping at her cheeks, Danny glancing away quickly, there is the hint of a smile on her lips, and he knows that she’s going to be okay.
********
NOVEMBER, 2007
Lydia builds up a sort of wall for herself. The only one who really sees her without it up is Danny, and that’s still a rare occurrence. She goes to class and does her homework and cheers just loudly enough at Quidditch games that people look at her but not loudly enough that she embarrasses. She perfects the art of flipping her hair and pouting until people do things for her, and within weeks, her grades are higher than ever, and Heather - and, surprisingly, Stiles Stilinski - have started following around after her, watching her every move, Danielle and Scott respectively being dragged around resignedly with them. She has the entire first year but Cora Hale under her thumb, and most of the teachers.
Her birthday comes and goes, but she still hasn’t written back.
********
DECEMBER, 2007
Stiles has asked her to marry him twice already, and both times Scott has been waiting afterwards to slap him on the back and say, “maybe next time, yeah?” Lydia can’t help but be a little frustrated by the whole situation – not just with Stiles, but with Scott for encouraging it. She has no plans to get engaged at the age of twelve, especially not to Stiles Stilinski, and she tells him that under no uncertain terms, but still he follows her. If she had thought that Scott looked like a puppy, it is nothing compared to how Stiles follows her now, but it’s significantly cuter on Scott.
She’s been asked out by three other boys, including a second year Slytherin named Jackson Whittemore, from one of the other oldest Slytherin families, she’s joined every club she can find, done her best to befriend Cora Hale, and kept her grades higher than Scott’s and Stiles’ put together.
First quarter ends, but she still hasn’t written back.
********
It all comes to a head on Saturday the fifteenth. It’s the only day that Lydia has off from all of her clubs and responsibilities, and she’s taking the opportunity to get some last minute studying done for her Charms quiz on Monday, or at least, she had been.
When Scott finds her though, she’s fast asleep, three giant textbooks spread out on the table in front of her, using the biggest one as her pillow.
“Lydia,” he says, sitting down next to her and shaking her shoulder gently. “Lydia, you’re drooling on that diagram of the swish and flick.”
“What?” she starts, jerking her head up and looking down at the book in front of her.
“Sorry,” says Scott, dragging the book away from her. “You weren’t actually drooling, I just wanted to make sure you’d wake up, the library’s closing in ten minutes. Aguamenti?” he adds, glancing down at what she was reading. “Isn’t that like third year stuff?”
“Professor Argent said she’d give me extra credit if I could learn it by Monday,” snaps Lydia, pulling the book back towards her and slamming it shut.
“But you already have like a hundred and twelve percent in that class.”
“So I need to go work on that,” continues Lydia, as if she didn’t hear him. “If you don’t mind.” She piles up the books she’d been reading and carries them over to the librarian, Kali, who is sitting and painting her toenails with the tip of her wand.
“Well I think your mouth’s already got it down,” teases Scott, gesturing to a bit of drool on her chin.
“Ha ha,” snaps Lydia, rubbing at the spot he gestured to impatiently. “Are you here for a reason, or did you just feel like harassing someone and Stiles was busy?”
“Oh, yeah, I was going to check out a book for my potions essay. Wait here a second.” He’s gone before Lydia has a chance to tell him she doesn’t really have time for that, she’s got Charms club first thing tomorrow morning, but she can’t just leave now, so she waits for him to get back, a heavy green textbook clutched to his chest. “Can I check this out?” he asks Kali.
“Just write down your name and the name of the book,” she says, waving her wand without looking up, and piece of parchment and a quill scoots forward on the table in between them. She goes back to painting her nails, and Scott signs the book out quickly, his handwriting barely legible.
“Okay, let’s go,” he says, grabbing Lydia’s hand and pulling her out of the library.
“Scott, I’ve got to go practice,” she says, pulling away from his grip.
“I thought that’s what we were going to do. Come on, there’s an empty classroom with stone floors down here that we can use.”
Lydia sighs but follows him down the hall, behind a tapestry, past a suit of armor that she swears was at least three floors above the library, and into an empty classroom.
“See, isn’t it perfect?” asks Scott, grinning from ear to ear.
“I guess it is,” says Lydia, looking around pensively. “Thanks Scott.”
Lydia didn’t think it was possible for Scott to look any happier, but clearly she was wrong as his eyes light up and his grin gets even wider.
“Come on,” he says, grabbing her hand again and pulling her to the middle of the room. “Let’s get these desks cleared out so we can start.”
Lydia’s not entirely sure how she ended up here, but as she helps Scott push the tables towards the walls to make a practice space in the middle, she realizes she doesn’t really care. She’s actually having the best time she’s had in weeks, giggling as Scott makes jokes about Professor Harris. They eventually get the all the desks out of the way though, and Scott moves to the front of the classroom, sitting down on top of the teacher’s desk and crossing his legs in front of him.
“Okay, go ahead.”
“Go ahead?” asks Lydia, pouting. “That’s it? No encouragements? No ‘good luck?’”
“You’re amazing, you don’t need good luck,” says Scott.
Lydia can feel the color rising in her cheeks and she busies herself pulling out her wand and practicing the movement for the spell.
“Okay, I think I’ve got it,” she says, once she’s sure her cheeks aren’t quite as flushed.
“Alright,” says Scott, leaning back on the palms of his hands. “Wow me.”
Lydia takes a deep breath, closes her eyes, and lifts her wand. “Aguamenti,” she says, waving her wand in the motion Professor Argent had taught her.
Nothing happens.
“Aguamenti,” she says again. “Aguamenti!”
A few drops of water shoot out of the end of her wand and land on the floor in front of her.
“Aguamenti!” she shouts. She gets a few drops of water again, but nothing better than that.
“Hey, that’s way better than I could have done,” says Scott, pulling out his wand too. “See, Aguamenti.” Nothing happens, but it doesn’t make Lydia feel any better.
She takes a deep breath though, trying to center herself, and tries one more time. “Aguamenti,” she says. Her wand lets out a little more water than the time before, but it still isn’t much.
“Ugh,” she groans, falling to the ground and crossing her legs, running her hands through her hair. “I can’t do this!”
“Lydia, hey, it’s okay,” says Scott, jumping up and sitting down next to her, putting his arm around her shoulders. “Shh, it’s okay.”
“I’m gonna fail everything,” she moans, leaning into his embrace.
“Is that what you’re afraid of? Because I think you’ve got better grades than anyone else in first year.”
“Yes,” she says. She pauses, and takes a deep breath. “No. Danny has a better grade than me in potions.”
“Okay, what’s really going on? And don’t tell me you’re just frustrated with this spell, because I’m not going to believe you.”
Lydia’s silent for a moment. Finally, she takes a deep breath. “My mother hasn’t written to me since the second day of school.”
“You mean, the, uh...”
“The howler about how I’ve betrayed my family? Yeah.”
“Well I’m sure she’s just-”
“Don’t tell me she’s just busy, or needs time to get used to it or anything, because Danny’s already told me all of that. I am a disappointment. I’m the first Martin to not be in Slytherin in like two thousand years! My mother was the top of every class she was in, and so were both of my grandmothers, and I can’t even master this stupid Aguamenti spell,” she snaps, eyes shut tight, clutching Scott to her even tighter. “My mother could make a full patronus by her third year and I can’t even-”
“Uh, Lydia?” asks Scott quietly.
“make water come out of my wand, no wonder she-”
“Lydia,” says Scott again, louder this time.
“doesn’t want to talk to me. I’m a-”
“Lydia!” shouts Scott, pulling back from her.
“What?” snaps Lydia, her eyes opening. Scott doesn’t need to reply, because she sees exactly why he interrupted her, but he does so anyways.
“It looks like you got it down.”
Lydia looks up at the water falling from the ceiling and can’t help but let out a choked laugh.
“It’s raining,” she says, still laughing. “I made it rain.”
She looks at Scott, grin spreading across her face.
“I made it rain.”
They both break out in laughter then, as the great fat rain drops fall from the ceiling of the classroom, drenching them both.
“I made it rain!” she shouts again amidst gales of laughter. Scott gets to his feet, holding out a hand to help her up too. She pulls him close the moment they’re standing, both grinned widely, and they just stand there hugging in the rain until it finally dies down and eventually stops completely.
“You made it rain,” says Scott disbelievingly, looking at the puddles around their feet.
Lydia gets back to the common room after curfew that night, completely drenched and grinning widely, and Danny just stares at her.
“Who are you,” he asks. “And what have you done with Lydia Martin?”
She just laughs, promises to tell him about it later, and runs up the stairs to take a shower.
********
Lydia gets a letter from her mother two days later. She immediately turns to Scott, who’s taken to sitting with Lydia and Danny at the Ravenclaw table since he’d helped Lydia with the Aguamenti spell, along with Stiles and the tiny asian girl who Lydia has finally learned is named Kira Yukimura, and is the daughter of the Muggle Studies teacher.
“It’s from my mother,” she says, holding the thick parchment envelope to her chest. “What do I do?”
“Well open it, obviously,” says Scott. Kira and Danny nod in agreement, and Stiles looks away. Scott told Lydia the day before that he’s currently trying to play it cool to see if that works any better and gaining her affection. She doesn’t dare admit that he’s actually growing on her a little.
“Okay, okay,” she says, peeling it open carefully, and pulling out the single sheet of parchment inside. She starts reading, and everyone around her can tell it’s not good. Her face falls gradually as she read the letter, and by the end of it, her thumbnail is back between her teeth. Without another word, she throws the letter down on the table in front of her and is out of the great hall. Danny jumps up to go after her, but Scott reaches for the letter instead.
Dear Lydia, it reads.
I have received your letters, and I’m very pleased that you’re doing so well in your classes. While I have accepted that you cannot change houses, and I know you are doing your best given the unfortunate circumstances, I am not ready to see you again so soon after the great shame you have caused our family. Please stop sending letters, I will contact you again when I am ready.
Have a good Christmas,
Natalie Martin
Scott carefully refolds the letter and puts it back in the envelope, leaning it against Lydia’s glass of juice.
“Come on,” he says, getting to his feet. “Let’s go back to our table.”
*********
Lydia’s been at Danny’s for Christmas before, but never like this. Her parents were always with her then for one thing, and the Mahealanis never spent the day shooting her surreptitious worried glances either. She tries to act like everything’s fine, smiles widely, gives Danny his present, opens the few last minute presents that they’d gotten for her, and eats second and third helpings of Mrs. Mahealani’s treacle pudding.
It doesn’t stop Danny from hearing her crying herself to sleep every night.
********
JANUARY, 2008
The Mahealanis have been shooting Lydia worried looks all of break, but the looks have gotten less worried and more guilty in the last few days, so she shouldn’t be surprised on New Years Day when they say they’re inviting over a few friends, but the only person who shows up is Lydia’s mother.
“Lydia,” she says when Lydia opens the door, her slightly wide eyes the only sign of her shock. “I should have expected something like this. I thought you would stay at the school for the holidays.”
“Well maybe you would know I was here if I’d been allowed to send you letters, Mother,” says Lydia, taking a step back so that Natalie could enter. “And just so you know, I had nothing to do with this.”
“Sorry, love,” says Mrs. Mahealani, walking in from the kitchen, brushing her light brown hair off of her shoulder. “But we’ve just been so worried about the two of you, and we knew you wouldn’t talk if we didn’t force you to.”
“Well I suppose if I’m already here, we may as well,” snaps Natalie, sweeping past Lydia into the living room. “Don’t suppose you could make us a cup of tea, could you, Amy?”
“It’s already steeping,” says Amy, the hint of a smile playing at her mouth.
********
“You look well,” says Natalie, when Lydia sits down in front of her, perching on the edge of one of the Mahealani’s old armchairs. “That school food must be doing you good.”
“Mmhm,” agrees Lydia, not sure what else to say. She doesn’t know if she should be shouting at her mother for the things that she’s said, or be on her knees, begging for forgiveness. Finally, she settles for a simple apology.
“Sorry,” she says. “I did ask the sorting hat to put me in Slytherin.”
“I know, dear,” says Natalie, patting Lydia’s knee distractedly. “I suppose it’s not really your fault.”
Lydia feels as if a giant weight has been lifted off her chest.
“Really?”
“Well of course dear. The hat is clearly just losing its touch a bit in its old age, isn’t it?”
“Uh, clearly,” says Lydia, not having expected that, but still glad that her mother is on her side.
“Perhaps I should complain to the headmistress,” says Natalie thoughtfully, stirring sugar into the cup of tea Amy has just brought her. Lydia shakes her head when Amy offers her a cup too. She’s sure she couldn’t stomach it right now. “Get that old hat tested.”
“Hmm,” says Lydia, picking at a run in her tights. “Maybe.”
“Well, I suppose you should get your things, shouldn’t you?”
“What?” she asks, jerking her head up.
“You are coming home with me, aren’t you?”
“Oh!” says Lydia, jumping to her feet. “Yes, of course. Just a moment!”
She spends the last week of break with her family, and if her mother is a bit more distant and judgemental the whole time, Lydia doesn’t mention it.
FEBRUARY, 2008
Stiles sends her six Valentines because he’s not sure which one she would like the best. Two of them sing.
MARCH, 2008
She spills pumpkin juice all over Cora Hale’s robes at breakfast, and instead of punching her, like Lydia is afraid she’ll do, Cora just laughs and pours a cup of luke warm tea over Lydia’s head too.
They have to go upstairs to change and shower, but by the time they get to Charms, twenty minutes after the bell has rung, Cora is still giggling, and Lydia hopes things might be looking up for her.
APRIL, 2008
The boys all start training to try out for the Quidditch team the next year, and Lydia starts spending a lot of time with Cora. Cora wants to try out for the team too, but her sister is going to be Slytherin Quidditch captain next year, and her brother is on the Gryffindor team too, so she’s been on a broom since she could walk. Lydia’s seen her fly once or twice, and she’s sure that if it weren’t for the rule against first years being on the house teams, she would’ve been on since the moment she got to Hogwarts. Cora is rude and a little abrasive and best friends with Malia Tate and Erica Reyes and Vernon Boyd, all of whom have always given Lydia a dangerous sort of vibe, but she’s also funny and clever, and could give Lydia a run for her money at Transfiguration, and Lydia thinks things must be looking up for her.
JUNE, 2009
Lydia gets an O on all of her finals, and gets an overall grade of one hundred and twenty three percent in charms. Scott laughs when she shows it to him, loud and happy, and Lydia can’t help but laugh too. She’s never wanted to go home less, to go back to her boring life away from the castle and her classes and her new friends, and, yes, her handsome Transfiguration teacher.
The train home comes on a Wednesday, and Lydia’s tempted to just hold onto the wall of the castle and refuse to let go. She’s eventually ushered into a tiny black carriage though, and once everyone is all settled, it takes off down a bumpy road, nothing pulling it. She wonders what kind of spell they use, and how hard it would be to learn, and resolves to research it next year.
Her heart leaps at that. Next year. She has six more years to spend here with Danny and Scott and Stiles and Cora and she’s never been more excited.
Yes, things are looking up for her for sure.