"I'm Madam Hooch," the spiky-haired, severe-looking woman said, placing her hands behind her back. "Welcome to your first flying lesson."

Belle looked down at the broom apprehensively. Madam Hooch really expected her to fly on this little twig?

"I want you all to extend your right hand over the broom, and say 'Up!'" She demonstrated, the broom flying instantly into her hand. "Don't worry if you can't get it right away. It takes practice, and that's what we're here for. Go on, now."

"Up!" To Belle's dismay, Jones's broom flew into his hands on the first try.

"Probably practiced all summer for that," Neal muttered in her ear as Jones leaned against his broomstick, watching her with his usual infuriating smirk. "Up!"

"Up!" Belle commanded. "Up!" The broom rolled around a little, but stayed firmly on the ground. "Up! This is impossible."

"Up!" Emma's voice rang out. "Up! David, did you see? Did you see?"

"Up!" David frowned down at his broom, concentrating deeply. "Up!"

"Up!" Neal caught his broom triumphantly. "Whoa, did you see that? Nearly got me in the eye!"

There were plenty of minor injuries: brooms smacking into heads, some levitating to whack their owners in the shins. It wasn't until a Hufflepuff girl's broom flew forcefully enough to make a sickening crack! against her wrist that Madam Hooch declared a visit to the hospital wing necessary.

"Now, all of you stay here," she ordered, helping Blanchard to her feet. "No one is to even think about flying while I take Miss Blanchard to the hospital wing."

Jones waited until Madam Hooch had disappeared inside the castle; then, he swung his leg over the broom and pushed off from the ground, shooting straight up.

"Idiot," Neal scoffed, watching him zoom through the air. "Hope he gets expelled."

"Madam Hooch said not to fly!" Emma yelled after him. "What do you think you're doing?"

Jones skidded to halt, dropping to the ground effortlessly. Tucking his broom over his shoulder, he sauntered over to Emma, ignoring David protectively stepping forward.

"Do you always do what teachers tell you?" he challenged. "I thought Gryffindors were supposed to be brave. Seems to me like you'd be better off as a Hufflepuff."

"That's enough, Jones," said a quiet voice.

Belle looked over, her eyes landing on a thin, intelligent-looking boy with dark hair, the tips just brushing his shoulders. A blue-and-bronze crest adorned his robes, revealing him to be another Ravenclaw.

"Sorry, what's that, Gold?" Jones didn't seem very intimidated by the boy. "Can't quite understand you, the accent's a bit thick."

"I said, that's enough," Gold repeated, stepping forward. Belle frowned slightly, noting how he seemed to favor his right leg. "Let's not bring Houses into this."

"I was being polite," Jones said, turning back to smirk at a glaring Emma."I could have brought Mudbloods into this."

Emma's brow twitched as everyone gasped: she didn't know what "Mudbloods" were, but she could tell it was offensive. Neal folded his hands in fists, breathing hard as he pushed past Gold to glower at the Slytherin boy.

"Take it back," he growled. "And don't ever let me catch you calling her that again."

Jones raised his eyebrows."What do you care?" he scoffed. "Perfect little pureblood like you, what do you care about some pathetic Mudblood—?"

"Take it back!" Neal said angrily, roughly shoving his shoulder. Jones took a step back to steady himself before he shoved the other boy back.

"Both of you, stop!" Belle watched through her fingers as Gold held his arms out between to keep them apart. The two boys glared at each other past his head, fuming. Gold slowly lowered his arms, and jutted his chin at Jones. "Go on, now. Run along."

Jones smiled mockingly past him at Neal. "Good thing you've got Gold to protect you," he said, glancing meaningfully at his left leg."Next time you might not be so lucky!"

Neal shot him a furious look, but Gold gripped his arm and tugged him away. Jones kept his eyes on them, not even noticing the fist swinging toward him from the side. He yelped as Emma slammed a punch in his face, making him stumble backward and fall on his back. She glared down at him, her fist still folded tightly at her side.

"I don't know what a 'Mudblood' is," she said through clenched teeth, "but I do know that if you ever call me, my brother, or anyone else that, you'll get a lot more than a punch to the face."

Jones stared up at her in wonder, holding his jaw, as everyone looked on in amazement. Neal sucked in his breath beside Belle, watching Emma pick up her broom and walk away with her chin held high.

"Blimey," he muttered. "Don't get on her bad side."

By her second week at Hogwarts, Emma decided that Potions was, surprisingly, one of the more frightening classes. Transfiguration was difficult, Charms fun, and History of Magic impossibly dull; but Potions had sent three students to the hospital wing the first week alone. True, she'd been far from broken-hearted when Jones poured too much dragon acid in his potion, and it spat up and burned him; but then it sprayed her from across the aisle, and they'd spent a miserable afternoon in adjacent hospital beds.

Herbology was, if possible, worse. Emma was right to feel apprehensive when Professor Sprout asked everyone to take out their dragon-hide gloves and follow her to greenhouse three. "I need everyone to pay attention, please! We're going to be repotting Fanged Geraniums," she announced, snapping on her own gloves. "We're only working with sproutlings today, so they haven't got full fangs yet. However, they will try to bite you and some of them have got a nasty set of baby teeth."

Emma pulled on her gloves, and looked over at Neal and Belle, the two of them crowded around a baby Fanged Geranium. She wasn't surprised they were partners: the two of them had been inseparable since the first day, as far as she could tell. Across from her, she could see Jones and a dark-haired Slytherin girl, neither of whom looked very pleased with the arrangement. Emma smirked: she couldn't imagine anyone who would be pleased to work with Jones.

Professor Sprout showed them how to grip their Geraniums and lift them into pots with fresh soil. "Remember what I said about the teeth!" she said as she finished the demonstration. "And I'll want a diagram by the end of the week, labelling the different fangs, so I hope you all brought your sketchbooks!"

There was a flurry of movement as everyone pulled their sketchbooks from their bags. Emma tossed her own on the table, and looked over at David. "Go on, then" she said, nodding toward the Geranium. "Grab it."

"Your hands are smaller, you do it."

"What's the matter, Nolan?" Jones grinned, raising his eyebrows tauntingly. "Scared?"

"Shut it, Jones, you haven't pulled yours up, either," David said witheringly.

"I've got Mills taking care of that for me, don't I?" he smirked as the Slytherin girl yanked their Fanged Geranium out of the soil.

"Ignore him," Emma muttered.

David made a face as she wrapped her hand around the stalk and pulled straight up. The Fanged Geranium had a wrinkled, smushed face, its mouth opening in an infantile cry to reveal needle-like teeth. Emma dropped it into the fresh soil, grimacing.

"Now what?"

"How the bloody hell should I know? Was I paying attention? No."

Emma exhaled, and leaned forward to look past him at Neal and Belle: they had already packed their Geranium in soil, and now Belle was gingerly holding open the mouth while Neal scribbled away on his sketchpad. "Get some soil and cover him," she said to David, and bent down to retrieve a pencil from her bag. "Then hold him still while I sketch."

"Why do I have to hold him?" David complained.

"Because I've done everything else, haven't I?" Emma snapped. "So, go on!"

David grumbled under his breath, but obliged and tossed a pile of dirt on the Geranium while Emma flipped her sketchpad open to a fresh sheet. Jones and Mills were bickering back and forth now, about who had to sketch and who had to hold the Geranium, which did nothing for her concentration.

"Oi!" she hissed. "Keep it down, I can't sketch with the pair of you going at it!"

"Can't sketch, either way," David muttered.

"Shut up, David."

He frowned, elbowing her in the ribs; Emma impatiently elbowed him back, and for a minute, there was a little scuffle between them until David said, "All right, I'm sorry! Just sketch it!"

Emma gave him a withering smile as he pried open the Geranium's mouth. "Took you long enough. But hold it open wider—I can't see the molars."

David was right about one thing: she really couldn't sketch. She ended up making two lines of triangles, and hastily scribbling in the margins: "molar" and "bicuspid" and "canine". David snorted at her pathetic attempt, though the Geraniums avenged her by snapping at his fingers.

"All right, pack it up, everyone!" Sprout called out, clapping her hands together. "Remember, I want a sketch from each of you!"

"You'll let me copy yours later, yeah?"David said, nudging her as he slung his bag over his shoulder.

"Yeah, 'course," she shrugged. "Catch up with you in a bit, okay? I just want to see if I can get these petals."

"Hurry up," he advised."Before Sprout tosses you out."

Emma nodded vacantly, working on outlining the splayed petals. She exhaled irritably as she had to scrub her eraser against her parchment for the fourth time, barely registering the sound of shoes scuffling behind her and coming to a stop.

"You've made a right mess of that, haven't you?" Neal's voice said cheerfully in her ear. Emma glanced over her shoulder to see him studying her drawing.

"I'm having some trouble," she said, mildly embarrassed. "I can't get the petals."

"Or the teeth," Neal grinned, taking the sketchpad from her. "Here, let me show you."

Emma stood back, standing on her tiptoes to look over his shoulder as he turned to a fresh sheet and stroked the pencil across.

"Don't try to get it all at once," he explained, tracing vague shapes. "A circle for the the flower…skinny triangle for the stem…and then the teeth are circles at the base there, do you see?"

"I'll take your word for it," Emma said, unable to fathom how he managed to pick out different shapes in the tangle of jagged petals and fangs before them. She raised her eyebrows, impressed, as she watched him transform the lines and circles into a flower. "Wow. You're really good at this."

Neal shrugged, handing it back to her. "Not so hard, if you know how to look at it."

"Thanks." Emma offered him a smile as she took the sketchpad. "And I never thanked you for…you know, when Jones called me a—"

"Don't say it," Neal said darkly. "It's a really foul word."

"It is?" Emma said in surprise, walking beside him as he started making his way out of the greenhouse. "I could tell it was rude, but I didn't know it was all that bad."

"Yeah, well…" Neal looked down at his feet, shoving his hands in his pockets. "You're Muggleborn, so you don't know, but there are some wizards who think having nonmagical blood is…I don't know, shameful or something. Most of us know it doesn't make a difference: a witch is a witch is a witch. But there are some Wizarding families that think they're better than everyone else because they're pureblood. Magic blood on both sides."

Emma frowned, remembering the exchange at the flying lesson. "Jones called you a pureblood, didn't he?"

Neal nodded. "I am," he said quietly. "I don't care, either way, but I think he's jealous. He's only a half-blood himself."

"You've known him a long time, then?"

"Our families live close to each other," Neal said stiffly. "I know him well enough." Not a happy acquaintance at all, judging from the sour look on his face when he spoke about him. Emma cleared her throat, eager to change the subject.

"Well, thanks, anyway," she said. "It was nice of you to stick up for me like that."

Neal glanced at her sideways, a small smile tugging at his lips. "I saw that punch you gave him. Seems you didn't need me, after all."

"I didn't," she agreed pleasantly. "But it was still nice."

Belle set her bag down on the library table with a sigh, the books in there clattering together and falling heavily. Reluctantly, she pulled them out and started stacking them in piles.

Charms…Potions…Transfiguration…History of Magic. Four essays, each with scroll length requirements longer than the last, and all due within the week. What Neal was playing at, spending his Saturday afternoon watching the Quidditch tryouts, she didn't know: she was worried she'd have enough time to eat and sleep, let alone think about some silly game.

"Let's see," she muttered, sitting herself down in her seat. "Where to start?"

She tapped her fingers indecisively for a minute, then settled on Transfiguration. It was the most difficult, after all: it would be nice to get it out of the way. She cracked open the book and flipped it to the third chapter.

With a small sigh, she rested her chin on her hand and lowered her eyes to the page. When transfiguring between objects of differing sizes, one must consider the realignment of atoms. According to Balthazar's Law, the atomic energy must reconfigure…

She began to doze off. It was so very dull and she was so very tired…But homework, a voice in her head insisted. Later, she told it. Just a small nap, just to rest her eyes for a minute—

"Oh!" She jumped in her seat as something bounced off her forehead, blinking at a small paper airplane fluttering to the table.

"Whoops," a voice chuckled from the other side of the room. Belle looked up to see Gold walking over to her, a sheepish smile on his face. He was still twirling his wand deftly between his fingers, even as he leaned across the table to snap up the paper airplane.

"Sorry about that," he said. "I was…I got bored."

"It's okay," Belle said, rather surprised to hear him talk. He was so quiet in class: always hovered near the back of the room, kept his nose in his books and stayed bent over his notes. Yet, here he was…pulling out the chair across from her.

"Are you working on McGonagall's essay?" he asked.

"Erm…trying to," she said, suddenly realizing she had no idea what his first name was. She stuck out her hand, attempting a friendly smile. "I'm Belle."

"Rumanus," he returned, giving her hand a firm shake. "You're friends with Neal Cassidy."

"Yeah." Belle withdrew her hand. "You are, too, I take it?"

"Not really," Gold said absently, pointing his wand at the airplane and making it float in a lazy circle over her head. "I know him."

Belle raised her eyebrows: he seemed pleasant enough, but he was clearly showing off; she could tell from the smug little smile that tugged at his mouth. Used to being the cleverest in the room, no doubt; and delighted by the chance to prove it.

Belle tilted her head back to look at the airplane. "Is that all you can do?" she asked, feigning disinterest. "It's a fairly simple spell, isn't it?"

Gold's eyebrows jumped, but he smiled. "Is that a challenge?"

"Yes," she said simply.

"All right." He narrowed his eyes in concentration, then gave his wand a complicated little flourish. The airplane exploded in a little shower of blue and gold fireworks, small enough to dance in the palm of her hand. Belle's eyes widened as she looked back at Gold, who was watching her with a small smile on his face.

"That wasn't in Standard Book of Spells," she said.

"Nope," he agreed cheerfully.

"Where did you learn it?"

"I invented it," he shrugged.

What? Belle shook her head confusedly. "What do you mean, you invented it?"

He smiled, showing white, pointy little teeth. "I'm what you'd call a prodigy. My aunts have been teaching me magic since I was a tot." He examined the wand, looking at it the way a painter does a paintbrush. "I used to use my mum's old wand, but now that I've got a proper one of my own…well, spells work much better."

A shadow flitted across his face when he'd mentioned his mother, despite the casual tone in his voice. Belle recognized the resigned grief in his eyes and felt her heart clench sympathetically.

"My mum's gone, too," she said quietly. Gold slowly lowered his wand, looking at her in surprise as she went on. "She was quite a gifted witch, once, but…a spell went wrong one day, and…"

"Mine left," Gold said shortly. "My dad was a Muggle. Didn't know she was a witch until I started sparking magic. Made her choose between him and magic." He frowned, kneading his fist into the table. "And she chose him. Left me, and chose him."

Belle looked at him, biting her lip worriedly. What did she say to that? The conversation had taken a frighteningly solemn turn, and now she had no idea how to respond. "I'm sorry," she said finally. "That's horrible."

Gold cleared his throat. "It's all right," he said, forcing calm. "Anyways, I should go."

Belle blinked as he stood up abruptly. "Go?" she echoed in surprise.

"I've got some work to catch up on," he said, keeping his eyes down determinedly as he tucked his wand away. "I'll see you later, Belle."

"Bye, Rum—er, Ram—Rum?"

"Rumanus," he corrected with a small smile. "But Rum' s fine."

"Okay." Belle smiled, holding her hand up in farewell. "Bye, Rum."

"Bye."

Belle waited until he had disappeared back to his side of the library before lowering her eyes to the Transfiguration textbook again. What an odd boy, she thought to herself as she started flipping through pages again. Rum had a strange way about him: he had thousand-year-old eyes, and yet he seemed to be positively sparking with quick-fire wit and brilliance. It almost frightened her how odd he was.

Although, she reflected, he had a very nice smile, too.

Reviews are greatly appreciated! Please? Please? Please? Please?