Astra

LXI - The Yule Ball

GRYFFINDOR TOWER WAS HARDLY less crowded now than during term-time; it seemed to have shrunk slightly too, as its inhabitants were being so much rowdier than usual.

Fred and George had had great success with their Canary Creams, and for the first couple of days of the holidays, people kept bursting into feathers all over the place. Before long, however, all the Gryffindors had learned to treat food anybody else offered them with extreme caution, in case it had a Canary Cream concealed in the center, and Astra had learned from the Prewett twins, who were extremely proud of their nephews and taking every available moment to brag about them, that the twins were working on other projects as well.

Even with snow falling everywhere, Astra woke up with a bright smile on the morning two days before the Yule Ball, hearing the thunder from outside and seeing a flash of lightning.

She got changed as quickly as possible, speeding towards Minnie's office while throwing her cloak over herself.

She was well aware that it was only 5:30 in the morning, but she also knew the professor definitely had a soft spot for her.

"Minnie! Minnie!" she yelled quietly, if that was eften possible, knocking on the door.

It took a few minutes, but the professor finally took a step outside, her hair actually down rather than its usual tight bun.

"Astra!" she scolded, but saw the girl pointing to a window and couldn't help the soft smile that took over her face.

"Oh, alright. Give me a moment."

Astra was beaming, restlessly waiting outside the door as McGonagall went inside and came out five minutes later with her hair up and the potions in her hand.

"The best place to do it would be in the courtyard, but first," Minnie cast an impervious charm over both of them, which Astra realized was a really good idea, and they headed outside.

The process was quite simple, actually, but it still didn't make Astra feel any less excited as a strange feeling came over her, and then she felt herself shrinking. There were feathers coming out of her arm, but they weren't arms anymore, they were wings. She finally stopped shrinking and saw that her view was quite different, and she could actually see really well in the dark.

Across from her was a cat, who was looking with wide eyes, and she could possibly tell that the cat was happy.

Glancing down, she saw the form of a snowy owl and squealed in excitement, though it came out more as a hoot. She jumped up and naturally flapped the wings, looking in awe as the ground went further away.

Unlike what she thought, it was actually quite easy to figure out how to fly for the first time, and she flew several rounds around the courtyard before returning to where Professor McGonagall was now standing.

Astra put all her focus into returning to her natural form, and then she was growing and the feathers were going away. She huffed to blow away a spare feather that hadn't gone away, but jumped into Minnie's arms, squealing, "I did it! I did it!"

McGonagall gave her another soft smile before bringing her inside where they worked on the transformation some more.

***

Hermione Granger woke up to an owl on her bed.

An owl.

It made her scream at first, waking up the other two girls in the dorm before noticing that it was a snowy owl, one that had a faint outline around its neck, right where Astra usually wore her necklace.