(Early in October on a Thursday, 1991, Hogwarts Castle, Scotland)

Sometimes I felt like a caged animal, like I was stuck in a box when all I wanted was to become one with the wind. It was part of my nature, I supposed. I was a shapeshifter so it made sense that I would have instincts that told me to shapeshift, but it was inconvenient at times. I could be anything, almost literally, yet I constricted myself to this persona of ‘Artemis Atterberry’.

It wasn't that I didn't like being Artemis, it was just that at times I wanted something different. At home I would sometimes spend whole weeks as something else, just because it felt nice. Like, one day I would tell Mom, 'Hey, I'm going be an Arctic fox for a while.’ And then she would be like ‘Okay, cool, I start defrosting some meat scraps from the freezer.’ I liked those weeks, they were nice, simple.

But I obviously couldn't do that here. It had been a little over a month, and I was fairly certain that I was becoming touch starved.

“Hmm,” I hummed, hanging upside-down on my broom.

We were in flying class right now. We only had it once per week, and it was still early in the year, so there was still a very visible divide between those with their own broom at home and those without. The class was mostly useless for me. Other students could at least find joy in the act of flying, but… I was me. These brooms didn't have the power output necessary for me to have a thrill.

If I wanted I could use telekinesis on top of the broom's enchantments, that could certainly get me up to a fun speed. Sadly there would be nothing to do with that speed until second year, because as I'd been told many times already, “Quidditch tryouts aren't open for first-years.” I grumbled mockingly under my breath.

I sighed, those thoughts weren't getting me anywhere. With a flex of my legs, I did a front flip to un-upside-down myself. Then, standing upright atop my broom, I started descending back to the ground. ‘Maybe I could learn how to broom surf upside-down. Now that would be wicked,’

Class was almost over, so many students had already landed and were sitting or standing in the grass of the courtyard. Though over half were still buzzing about in the air. I sat down cross-legged by where my broom now rested on the ground, and took my sketch book from my bag. I didn't draw anything in particular, just stuff. Whatever was on my mind really.

I enjoyed seeing how far I could push just pen and paper, black ink on a white page. When I started I had rendered images in a near perfect grey scale, but nowadays I had learned that a style that had people infer the detail of my art seemed to have more punch. It was a weird trick of human pattern recognition, where making the brain work just a tiny bit harder would cause the image to feel more expressive.

I was drawing a little girl right now. Not a real one, there were plenty of those already in there. I had sketches of all my dorm mates already, this was something new, something fictitious and speculative. Maybe one day I would flesh it out fully, and add it to my ever growing catalogue of biological blueprints.

“Art!” the voice of Eileen called out in front of me. I looked up from my sketch and my eyes revealed what I already knew they would find. Eileen's yellow eyes met my radiant blue, and her face was framed by her dark brown hair as she looked down at me.

“Yes Eileen, my name is Art and I am doing art. You are very funny.” I said with a soft smile on my face.

“Pfft!” She broke down giggling in the grass beside me. I soon joined her, though more modestly.

“Haaa,” I sighed contentedly, then lifted one of my hands. “Three, two, one,” I snapped my fingers, and simultaneously Madam Hooch blew her whistle.

Eileen gasped comically. “Witchcraft!” she shouted. And then we both laughed some more, because that was far from the first time I had done such a thing. It was becoming something of a running gag in our little group of dorm girls, that I was somehow performing supernatural acts. Which I was, but they all just chalked it up to me being weirdly observant and having a scarily good sense for timings.

The forty-ish Hufflepuffs and Ravenclaws all filtered through the broom shed. Walking in, putting a broom into one of the storage racks, walking out. All together it took four whole minutes, but most of that was spent talking as I waited in line.

Flying was our last class on Thursdays, so I had the three hours to do ‘whatever I wanted’ until dinner. Sadly that was more limiting than it first sounded, but it was tolerable, especially with friends.

Speaking of, I knew that my book buddy was free right now, and that she had double potions tomorrow. ‘Perhaps I could help her study? Yeah, that sounds like a pleasant use of time.’ I thought with a smile. I then politely broke off from the rest of the group, and headed to Gryffindor Tower.

Through many halls I went, and upon reaching the ‘secret’ entrance I greeted the painted lady. “Hello dame,”

“Hello, I suppose you know the password, again.” the Fat Lady— I don't know why she was okay with being called that— said.

“Back of blueberries,” I recited this week's password. I had a very wide net of perception, even if I didn't enjoy using it much of the time. That's what I had overseers like Watcher for.

“Alrighty, in you go,” she said as her portrait swung open, revealing a round hole in the brickwork that I crawled through. On the other side I was greeted by the Gryffindor common room, with its central fireplace and plush leather chairs. It was rather homely, but to stuck-up for my tastes. Too much red, at least Hufflepuff common room had a bunch of other colours to blend in with the always blossoming plants.

I got a few stares from the various students that were about, but I ignored those as I marched towards the entrance to the girls dorm. Up the stairs and inside the first-years floor of the tower, Hermione Granger sat atop her bed. She had a notebook open, and was repeatedly running through her phonetic pronunciations. Her wild mane of brown hair and somewhat noticeably misaligned teeth gave her an almost ratty vide, even if she was anything but.

I knocked on the wood of her bed to grab her attention, before speaking. “You are currently fitting the definition of insanity.” I said to her in jest.

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“Hello Artemis,” she said.

“I just got out of Flying, and was wondering if you wanted to do some studying together?” I said, smiling excitedly at her.

“Right now?” she asked.

“Naturally,” I answered.

“Um, okay, I guess we could. Just gimme a second to—” I snapped my fingers and used telekinesis to put up her stuff for her. She huffed. “I really need to learn how to do that.” she said, as if I didn't display a level precision impossible for most to achieve in a lifetime.

Wandless magic was hard, exponentially more so in proportion to the broadness of the spell. Anyone could learn a spell or two wandless. Maybe one in a twenty thousand could learn to do what I just did, and considering the fact that all of Britain only had some ~7000 witches and wizards, it was pretty rare.

I bet Hermione could learn it. She was very talented. Had a lot of potential, and the drive needed to fulfil that potential.

“Yes, it is very convenient at times.” I responded.

“So… library?” she asked.

“Yep!” I said, and she grabbed her book satchel.

As we walked she asked me a question. “Hey Artemis?” she started.

“Yes?”

“Why do the book bags only work on books?”

“Conceptual weight, the same reason that the solstice days are so much stronger than there direct neighbours.” I said.

“I don't understand,” she implied a request for elaboration.

“The cultural idea of a bag specifically for books causes the enchantments of the bag to be more potent than the specification would normally allow.” I elaborated.

“You're saying the fact that everyone thinks the book bag should hold books makes the book bag hold books better?” she asked.

“Yes,” I confirmed.

“Weird,”

“Yes, yes it is,”

And the two of us continued on our marry— cough cough— I mean merry. And the two of us continued on our merry way.

⋇⋆✦⋆⋇

“They say heat on medium for thirty seconds, but it would actually be better if you did it on low for thirty, and then high for about five seconds.” I said, going over a section from Magical Drafts and Potions.

“And then you grind it in the mortar.” said Hermione right next to me, looking at the book we had sprawled across the table.

“After it cools. You can blow on it gently to speed that up, but don't blow on anything with powders.”

The library was as pleasant as ever. A light muffling charm let us talk freely, despite Madam Prince's stern opposition against noise generation of any kind. That was such a perplexing policy choice. I could understand being strict with book usage and safety— some of those tomes were hundreds of years old— but I got the feeling Madam Prince was just an overly strict person in general.

A lot of what I was saying was pretty basic, but Hermione was a Muggle-born, so she didn't have any level of baseline understanding about how magic worked. Good thing she had such kind and reliable friends— friend, singular, I was her only close friend— that she could rely on.

Sometime later we parted ways, I was sure that she would crush that double Potions class. We might not have grades like in Muggle schools aside from occasional exams, but both Gryffindor and Hufflepuff were sure to give Slytherin a run for its money in the House Cup this year.

I spent the rest of the evening until dinner, and then after dinner until curfew, playing with Olea outside. We didn't get as much time together as I would like, but we chatted psychically all the time. So it wasn't too bad. I was just a greedy little half-breed that couldn't get enough of my favourite birdie.

⋇⋆✦⋆⋇

(Three days later in October, 1991, Hogwarts Castle, Scotland)

It was Sunday, and I had managed to corral a huge group together so that we could write a dozen essays about the theoretical uses of Flipendo, the knockback jinx. We were all assigned fourteen inches as homework, which was preposterous not only for the fact that it was in inches— Eww— but also because it was way too much. Hence the big group. They were all pinging ideas back and forth, and I was busying myself by writing everyone's papers— in their handwriting— without making it look like any were copied.

It was strangely fulfilling, helping everyone in such a way. And the word work needed to make each essay unique was a genuinely engaging challenge that I was finding a lot of fun in.

At first a few members of the group protested about ‘academic integrity’ or something, but eventually I managed to convince them that actually learning was more important, and that the study circle strategy was more effective for learning than thirty five and a half centimetres of homework.

We were making a real ruckus of the Hufflepuff common room. Even if several members of the group weren't Hufflepuffs. There weren't any rules against letting students of different houses intermingle in this way, just a societal stigma. Which I certainly didn't give a shit about. It kinda looked like we were having a slumber party, what with how comfortably everyone was lounging. Jennifer and a couple of her friends had been kind enough to use a combination of conjuration, duplication, and transfiguration in order to provide us with a venerable valley of pillows and cushions to hold the study session in.

Even Hannah and Hermione were loosening up a little, in their own ways.

After just an hour and a half everyone was essentially finished. At that point Megan crawled her way over to my paper covered corner of the totally-not-a-pillowfort. “So, is that enough for you to somehow work with?” she asked, brushing a lock of her curly black hair out of her face. The group noticeably quieted down as they shifted their collective focus towards the two of us.

I pushed the reading glasses I was wearing up the bridge of my nose. They were small rectangular things with a dark and metallic half frame design that only covered the bottom of the lenses. I obviously didn't need glasses, but the low resting spectacles certainly did help project a certain image. “Oh, I had enough to work with ages ago. Everybody's papers are already finished. Feel free to cross check them if you have any doubts about my writing abilities.” I then clapped my hands once, which caused all the papers that I had strewn about to unscatter themselves, forming two nice stacks on either side of me.

“If you were already done writing then why didn't you tell us?” asked Sue, a girl from Ravenclaw whom I had invited.

“Well, everybody was just learning so much! I couldn't possibly have interrupted,” I said with a bright smile on my face.

For my consideration, I received half a dozen shouts that were variations of ‘Yes you could have!’ It was nice to know that my thoughtfulness was appreciated.

“Either way, they're done now,” I picked up one of the stacks of essays. “So quit your complaining, and come taste the fruits of my much appreciated labour.”

“How did you even write sixteen feet—” Gabby started asking as I was passing out everyone's papers.

“Five metres,” I interrupted.

“Ugh, fine. How did you write five metres in under an hour and a half? You must've been writing at over two inches per minute! That's multiple words per second, for over an hour.” she finished.

“First of all, bullshit, that's how. And second, that would be five point five two centimetres.” I replied calmly.

Gabby took a deep breath, before sighing. “Okay,” she said, giving up on the topic and instead looking at her essay. “I would ask how this is in my handwriting, but…”

“The sphinx of black quartz judging my vows, it's a pangram. Though I'm surprised she managed to make them this good with just that.” Hermione supplied.

Once we were done, and everyone had all their things put up, I presented a question to the group. “Does anybody want to do this again next Sunday?” I absently asked.

“Yes,” Laura was the quickest to respond.

“Obviously,” followed by Eileen.

“Absolutely,” and Janet.

“I don't see why not.” then Alice.

“Sure,” and Gabby.

“I guess we could,” came from Hannah.

“I'd love to,” was from Megan.

“It would be fun,” Sue.

“Sure,” Susan.

“I guess,” Samantha.

“Yeah, sure!” John.

“Okay,” Hermione.

“That'd be cool,” Reynold Kippers, a Ravenclaw boy.

“What everyone else said,” Evan Ritherbork, a Hufflepuff boy.

Admittedly I didn't know Kippers or Ritherbork at all, they were just tagalongs of Sue and John respectively.

“Oh, okay!” I spoke cheerfully. “I really wasn't expecting that much across the board approval… so I guess we can all meet back up here again at the same time next Sunday!”

From there we all said our goodbyes, and Megan, Susan, Samantha, and I stacked up the pillows.

‘That was certainly pleasant,’ I thought to myself. ‘Now all I need to do is come up with a silly acronym, and then we'll have a club on our hands.’