The 1st year Slytherin's trail into the common room quietly lest they disturb the 5th and 7th years. Rowan stifles a yawn and takes a seat at a table with gobstones. "Want to play?" Rowan asked as Severus stiffens recalling that their mother had once been the captain of the gobstones team. Sadly enough, just this morning, Severus had already been told that their mother would not be returning via a private letter sent to the head of house, Professor Slughorn, who passed the unopened letter to Severus from their grandfather, Reginald Prince.

Rowan sees Severus's dark face and hastily gets up. "What about wizarding chess?" Rowan hastily said as she pointed to another table.

Severus purses his lips as if in thought, before reluctantly moving over to the other table with a wizarding chessboard. They both carefully set their bags on the floor under their seats lest anyone trip over them and scatter the more dangerous contents such as their ink and quills all over their books. "Black or white?" Rowan asked as Severus takes the white for himself.

Rowan grins knowingly as they wait for their pieces to properly line up all on their own. "So, have you made any friends yet?"

"Yeah, Sirius isn't too bad," Severus muttered as he thoughtfully gazed at the board trying to think of his first move.

"I meant in Slytherin," Rowan snorted as she waited for Severus to make the first move.

Severus orders his pawn to move up two spaces as Rowan takes out her knight in response. "There's Terry Greengrass, he's quite the amiable fellow and my roommate."

"Well, that's good," Rowan grumbled as Severus made his next move and has his bishop slide diagonally onto the middle of the board.

"I'm just glad you've made friends in our age group all on your own." Rowan furrowed her brow as she instructed a pawn forward in the bishop's path.

"I'm not that unsociable," Severus growled as he brutally moved his bishop forward to take Rowan's pawn.

"No, what I meant is that I'm surprised that you actually became friends with Sirius Black," Rowan truthfully stated as she ordered her knight to take Severus's bishop.

Severus lets out a soft curse as he moves his rook forward. "Though you can certainly call him arrogant and mischievous, he's alright," Severus finally concluded.

Rowan smiles at the board and says, "Well, that good." And then ruthlessly sends out her bishop to take Severus's rook. They both cease their soft talk as they solely concentrate on the violent chess game. The moving chess pieces attack and crush each other until the bloody victor emerges as Rowan.

A case of theft: this story is not rightfully on Amazon; if you spot it, report the violation.

Defeated, Severus falls back into his seat to sulk. "Well, what about you? Have you made any friends yet?" Severus taunted.

"Well, excluding Lily, I'm on friendly terms with three other girls," Rowan snickered at Severus's unhappy glare. "The girls are sweet and quirky in their own way."

Before their conversation can continue a sudden exclamation causes them to look up at a couple of first-years gathered around the common area board. Severus and Rowan glance at each other with curiosity before getting up to take a closer look. "What's going on?" Severus asked, a delicate-looking boy with floppy hair and hazel colored eyes, who coincidentally was one of his roommates as well.

Terry Greengrass turns and says, "We have flying lessons this Thursday meaning, we're stuck with the Gryffindors."

Severus's eyes twinkle in delight as Rowan's face wanes tragically. Terry notices Rowan's reaction and misunderstands the situation. "I know the Gryffindor's can be pretty annoying, but they're not all that bad."

Rowan doesn't bother to correct Terry's misunderstanding and instead mumbles, "I'll be heading back to the girl's dorm."

Terry frowns at seeing Rowan's depressed figure walk away. "Was it something I said?" Terry said in bewilderment.

"Girls are weird like that," a voice commented from behind them. Severus and Terry turn around to see Perfect Wilkes pityingly gaze them. "Boys learn this wise lesson when considering the opposite sex. Girls are strange creatures, one minute they're perfectly fine, the next they want to flay the skin off your back. You're better off just learning to run when things look hairy."

Severus dubiously eyes Wilkes as Terry shrugs. "Mm, that's generally what I do around my older sisters. However, I've learned that if I throw a chocolate frog in the opposite direction and then run, it generally works out better."

"That's brilliant!" Wilkes exclaimed. "Why hadn't I thought of that?" Wilkes mumbled to himself with a frown.

Severus rolls his eyes and huffs, "I'm heading back to the dorm. Coming?" Terry follows after Severus leaving a mumbling Wilkes in their wake.

Upstairs in the girl's dorm, Rowan's three roommates glance up from their homework as she enters their shared dorm room. Gloating over at Rowan, Silvia Flint cheeky grinned, "I never thought you would be bad at something, Rowan Prince."

"That's just rude, Silvia!" Bethanie Fawley chided her friend.

"But it's true," Tiffany Topsy cried out in Silvia's defense.

"No, it's okay," Rowan grumbled. "I'm not very good at handling live specimens. I never have and never will be."

"I guess that means becoming a potion master is out of the question," Silvia cackled earning her a dirty look from Rowan.

Tiffany thoughtfully purses her lips and sincerely says, "If it's any consolation, I'm bad at potions too."

"Thanks," Rowan drily said as Bethanie sighs at her friends' antics. Bethanie apologetically smiles at Rowan, who gestures with a shrug of her shoulders that it was fine.

The three girls return back to their previous studies as Tiffany turns the page of her textbook and sullenly comments, "I hate Herbology. All that dirt and creepy plants, ick."

"Mm, at least it's better than Potions," Silvia argued. "One wrong ingredient and all your hard work goes to waste."

"True," Bethanie mumbled as she kept reading the chapter and taking careful notes. While the three girls continued their studies, Rowan blankly stares at the ceiling in thought. It wasn't that she was afraid of flying or heights, it's just that she had a fear of falling with the combined factor of an overactive imagination.