Emilia stood by the entrance to the Quidditch field on early Saturday morning, freezing, her hair dancing in the wind, looking back towards the castle waiting for the Ravenclaw team to come for their weekly training.
She found out from Jaz that Ravenclaw had reserved the field for themselves on every Saturday from 7 to 11 in the morning. So she stood there, her boots soaking up from the wet grass, waiting for them to come so she could speak with Ash and explain to him why she lied.
At that point, she had realized that there was no point in coming up with more excuses. No matter whether she could trust him or not, he did find out about her abilities, he most definitely saw them when he burst into Crane’s classroom the day before. So all that was left to do, was just to be honest with him and hope for the best.
Finally, after minutes of waiting, she saw a couple of dark blue figures in the distance, walking from the castle. Ash was walking together with Matt, as usual, they were talking about something, until Mattias noticed Emilia in the distance and elbowed Ash, pointing in her direction.
‘I’ll join you guys in a minute, alright? You can go on ahead and warm up.’ – he ordered, before he walked up to the girl.
‘Hey, Ash.’ – she said, her voice shaking from both the cold and stress.
‘Hey.’ – he replied casually.
‘Listen, I…’ – she began before he stopped her, putting his arm on her cold shoulder.
‘You don’t have to explain anything to me, Emilia. I’m not angry or anything like that.’
‘You’re not?’ – she asked, surprised.
‘No. I understand that you probably didn’t want to tell the guy you only met this week that you have some special abilities and that you train them in your free time.’ – he chuckled, seeming surprisingly calm. – ‘You don’t know me well enough yet to trust me with secrets like that.’
‘It’s not that Ash, I just…’
‘Hey, you don’t need to explain yourself to me, we can just go to Hogsmeade some other time. It’s alright, I promise you.’ – he smiled.
‘How about today then? After your training?’ – she suddenly asked, shocked by her own straightforwardness.
His smile grew even wider and he looked at her with his beautiful, green eyes.
‘Sure, I’d love to. Let’s meet by the main gate at 12, alright?’
‘Alright.’ – she nodded, also smiling.
He moved closer to her and embraced her in a tight hug, resting his chin on top of her head. A swarm of butterflies appeared in her stomach from excitement, as she wrapped her arms around him as well.
She felt like she could stay this way forever, the warmth of his skin felt so pleasant after being so cold, his uniform was soft and he smelled so nice. She wasn’t used to any physical contact, so it was genuinely refreshing, and she actually felt sad once he moved back, but she held her feelings in, instead smiling up at him before saying:
‘I’ll see you at 12 then.’
He nodded, still smiling from ear to ear, before turning around and walking through the Quidditch fields entrance.
...
It was only 11:30, but Emilia was already sitting on one of the benches in the Main Courtyard, right by the main gates. It had gotten surprisingly warm, so she took of her jacket and laid it down next to her, sitting only in her dark green and brown sweater, light brown pants and big boots. The soft wind was playing with her hair gently and she was looking up to the sky, soaking up the last warm sparks of the sun, before winter was going to take over.
She was very excited for her first date ever, she actually felt barely any stress, it was comforting how extremely nice and easy to talk to Ash was, it calmed down any negative feelings that she had in her.
She still had around half an hour before he would come, so she tried to kill some time by observing students spending their lazy Saturday morning outside the castle. She saw a couple of young girls talking and giggling on one of the benches near the fountain, as they were looking at two older Hufflepuff boys tending to their brooms while sitting on the other side of the fountain. Another small group was standing in a tight circle by the castle’s outer walls, trying to open some mysterious door. There were also lots of other students, spread all across the Courtyard, sitting alone or in pairs and studying. She was slowly studying each one of them, until she noticed a familiar figure. It was Elle, the girl she met on the carriage right after arriving at Hogwarts.
She decided to come and say hello. As she walked up to the girl, she noticed that she was crying, holding her books and pieces of parchment in her arms and her big glasses, broken in half, laying down on the bench beside her.
Emilia sat down next to her and reached out to put her hand on her arm.
‘Hey, Elle, it’s Emilia, we met on the train, remember? Are you okay? What happened to you?’ – she asked with concern, looking down at the torn books that the girl was trying to hold together.
‘Oh, hi Emilia, of course I remember you.’ – she looked up and sniffed loudly. – ‘I’m just… those mean girls from my house got a hold of my things again. And well…’
She stopped to try and stop from bursting into tears again.
Emilia’s veins filled with anger. She despised bullies. She felt so bad for Elle, despite being very talkative, she seemed like such a kind and sweet person. She felt so disgusted by this situation, but she held her feelings in and asked fairly calmly:
‘Does this happen to you often? Other girls picking on you, I mean.’
‘Well… yes. It’s been an issue for me ever since I came to Hogwarts.’ – the sadness in the girls voice caused Emilia to almost boil inside. – ‘I don’t really have anyone that I could turn to, I’ve no friends, and if I try and talk to one of the teachers it will only make things worse.
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Emilia looked at her, feeling so much empathy towards the girl.
‘You have me now.’ – she said.
Elle looked up again, her teary eyes shining with hope.
‘Really? You think we could be friends?’ – the excitement in her voice arose like a flower in the sun.
‘Of course.’ – Emilia nodded, giving her a warm smile.
She then picked up the girls glasses and took out her wand. She whispered ‘Reparo’ and they both watched the broken glasses return back to its original shape, looking as good as new. Elle thanked her, giving her a tight hug.
Her eyes noticed a small figure afar, walking out of the main entrance, and realized it was Ash, finally coming to meet her.
‘Listen, Elle, I need to go for now, but how about we do something together tomorrow? Maybe go to the library or something and just talk.’ – she offered as she stood up.
Elle’s face brightened up with happiness.
‘Really? Oh, I’d love to. I can’t wait. I’ll see you tomorrow then, Emilia. And thank you, so much, you’re the first person here that’s actually nice to me. I’m very glad you came to Hogwarts.’ – she stated, stuffing the scraps left from her books into her school bag.
‘Heh, thank you. I’ll see you tomorrow, Elle.’ – she smiled, before leaving and walking up to Ash and greeting him with a quick hug.
The boy was wearing a white shirt that was hidden underneath his light gray sweater, he had black pants and matching black boots. His hair was neatly styled to the side, as usual, and his face was warmed up with a wide smile that welcomed his face the moment he saw her.
‘Hi there.’ – he greeted her, as he moved back from the hug. – ‘Ready to see Hogsmeade for the first time?’
‘Ready.’ – she replied, giving him a soft smile before turning around and beginning to walk with him towards the main gates.
His hand reached out for hers and their fingers interlaced, causing Emilia’s heart to flutter with emotions, her cheeks as usual giving away her feelings despite her trying to hide them.
Ash said nothing, and just smiled, seeing her face turn red, as they walked out of the castle grounds, beginning their first official date.
...
‘So how was it? Tell us everything, please! – Rosie begged, shaking Emilia’s arms, whilst sitting with her on the couch in the common room later that day.
‘It was nice. I had fun.’
‘Nice? Just nice? Oh, for Merlin’s sake, Emilia, give us some details!’ – she kept on asking.
‘Well, we went for a nice walk, checked out some shops around town and then went to The Three Broomsticks for some butterbeer.’ – she simply revealed.
‘…That’s it? And you didn’t even do any… stuff? Not even some kissing?’ – Rosie pushed more, visibly disappointed.
‘Um… we held hands? So it was something, right? I mean, I’ve only known him for a week, isn’t it too early to be doing more? It was only our first date, after all.’ – she explained, feeling nervous just at the thought of kissing Ash.
‘No, you’re right, Em. You can do whatever you’re comfortable with, don’t push yourself into anything you don’t feel like doing yet, if ever. Don’t listen to Roz, it’s not your fault she can’t keep it in her pants.’ – Jazmine reassured her, giving Roselyn a judging side-eye.
‘Excuse me?’ – she looked back at her, outraged.
Both of the girls burst out laughing, whilst Roz took one of the pillows from the couch and banged Jaz over the head with it. A challenging grin appeared on her face, as she grabbed another pillow and avenged herself, slapping Rosie over the face with it.
Emilia joined them with another pillow and the war began, the girls giggling loudly and fighting until Rosie fell down and dropped onto the carpet by the fireplace, laughing so hard she had to hold her own stomach.
Emilia felt so happy and carefree with them. Her first week at Hogwarts was about to end, and she already experienced more than she ever did before in her life, and she felt as happy as ever.
...
The next weeks passed on unbelievably quickly. The weather outside has gotten colder, the days were shorter and all of Emilia’s relationships have grown stronger.
Her study sessions with Elle at the library had become a routine, they would meet every Sunday and just read together and help one another with assignments, her younger friend was surprisingly helpful and intelligent, and she was one of the sweetest and nicest people Emilia had ever met, which is why it pained her more and more each time she noticed Elle being picked on in the hallways. She would always come up and stand up for the girl, protecting her from the annoying Hufflepuff girls, before they got to destroy more of her belongings, and Elle was eternally grateful for that. She would actually tell her during their every study session that with each time that Emilia had intervened the less they actually were trying to bully her, which made both of the girls very happy.
She began spending awfully lot of time with Ominis and Sebastian, both of the boys were hilarious and always had some fun ideas to spend their time at Hogwarts, dragging her with them onto some reckless yet entertaining adventures, most of the time causing them to get into some sort of trouble and end up in detention.
However lucky for her, her bond with Ash had grown much stronger, and considering he was the head prefect, he often got her out of trouble, which she would compensate by going out on more sweet little dates with him, as simple as just walking around the castle grounds together, studying for herbology, her showing him her special abilities or Ash teaching her how to ride a broom.
Jaz, who was the most competitive and ambitious person that Emilia had ever known, had also gotten the idea of teaching her friend flying, which resulted in Emilia spending most of the afternoons on the Quidditch field, being forced to fly around, chasing some enchanted balls and trying not to fall down, breaking her bones.
After some time, Ash and Jaz decided to join their powers and train Emilia together, and Matt would often join them and watch from the other side of the field, whilst training by himself. Emilia noticed Jaz often looking in his direction, getting distracted while trying to explain something to the girl, causing in some minor injuries as Emilia was prone to falling off of her broom pretty often.
As they both stated, she was a fairly good flyer, but had no knack for Quidditch itself. The rules were too complicated, and even explaining them to Emilia by her trainers countless times only resulted in her doing some random things instead, at least giving them something to laugh at.
Rosie on the other hand, never wanted to step a foot on the field. Instead, she would force Emilia on never-ending shopping sprees at Hogsmeade, having her try on some new clothes, trying to talk her into ‘spicing up her style a little’. The girl was always too shy to say no, so she would end up spending many galleons each week on pieces of clothing that she was probably never going to wear.
She would also often get owls from Atticus. He was always wandering around the Highlands or the school grounds, finding some interesting magical items to show her, or sneaking into the Restricted Section at the library to obtain some scary looking books that he would have her read. She enjoyed time with him, despite the judging looks that she would always get for being seen with him, as the rest of the school, including her friends tried to talk her out of that ‘dangerous’ friendship. But she just couldn’t see what they saw, to her Atticus, despite being eccentric sometimes, and his fascination with dark arts was definitely something that she was against, she was able to see through that, actually seeing who he was, and she was happy with the friendship that they had.
Life was good. Very good. Emilia was happy, and even though her extra studies were draining her every week, as Professor Crane expected more and more of her during each meeting, she felt proud of herself, realizing how much stronger, yet controllable her powers had become. She would always share the details of those meetings when spending time with Ash, him being the only person that knew about it, and he was always so interested and fascinated with her every word, he loved seeing her use her abilities, and would always ensure her just how special all of that was.
She was hoping that things would only get better from that point on.