The Daughter of a Knight

Пять (5)

"I crossed my fingers!" He whispered gleefully, "so, you guys, have any ideas?"

As James continued to wrack his brain for the perfect prank, Ekaterina was eyeing the food in front of her with distrust.

"It's not poisoned, you know."

"I know it's not," she told Regulus, "it just looks weird. Do you not have any...Господи...заливное? I don't know it in English."
(Oh my God, aspic)

"What does it taste like?" Her friend inquired.

"Like meat. I don't know, it's meat in a sort of jelly?"

"Ew, that sounds disgusting!"

"It's actually quite tasty! Maybe a bit weird at first because of the texture," a boy from next to Regulus piped in, raising his hand for Katia to shake, "Evan Rosier, this grumpy lad's best friend."

"Hey, I'm not grumpy!"

"Yes! Keep telling that to yourself, maybe it'll work in your favour and make you a joy to be around!"

"Are you insinuating that I'm not a joy to be around right now?"

"Well you're not if you keep complaining," the Rosier boy flashed him a quick smile and stood, handing a sheet of paper to the Russian witch, "here's your timetable, Slughorn asked me to pass it on to you. Anyway, gotta dash before Reg there decides to become even grumpier and throw a curse my way."

Her first lesson was a double transfiguration. She softly groaned, she was amazing at the subject, but she found it to be incredibly boring, so a double lesson would surely be the death of her.

Regulus rose from the seat beside her, "I have to go find Evan, see you at lunch!" And before she could ask where the transfiguration classroom was, he was already gone.

Sighing she took her bag and stood from the table as well, getting ready for a long trip to her lesson, as she would have to wonder through the whole school to find where she had to go.

But it seemed that luck was on her side as she stepped out of the hall and right in front of Pandora Smith, the kind Ravenclaw who liked to experiment.

"Katia!" The girl cheerfully greeted. "I see you got Slytherin, do you like your common room?"

"Yes, I do, it's nice."

She stood in front of the younger girl for a few moments in complete silence when she finally got the courage to ask where she should head. And so she found herself sitting in the transfiguration classroom, behind the last bench on the left side of the room, eyeing her fellow Slytherins and the Ravenclaws that they had the class with.

Their teacher, McGonagall, hadn't even been talking for ten minutes when Katia found herself bored out of her mind. She had, at first, been satisfied with the fact that she didn't have a desk mate as that would mean she would have to talk to a new person, but now she hated it.

The first twenty minutes she tried focusing on the woman that stood in front of the class. Then she studied her classmates, trying to figure out what they were like. After that Katia started coming up with stories about the people around her. Some were now sailors and others pirates, a few were royals and the rest peasants, some time travellers and all the others people that they were trying to rescue from impending doom.

But even after that, when she glanced at the clock, not even an hour had passed. She huffed and plopped back in her seat, scowling at the table in front of her. A few minutes later she was hunched over it again, but this time instead of trying to concentrate on writing notes or hiding her gaze from her classmates, she was scratching the desk with her quill.

There was no idea in her mind, she just let her hand do what it wanted. Katia wasn't really worried about the consequences if she should be caught by the Professor. This was a magic school, it wasn't hard to wave a wand and make it look the way it had before.

Soon enough the bell in the classroom rang, indicating the end of the lesson. It had started the Petrov girl, the rest of the class had passed in minutes for her. But as she looked at the table she knew it couldn't be true, nearly all of her side of the desk was covered in azalea carvings. She liked it too much to erase it and instead just made her way out of the classroom as quick as she could, hoping to run into Pandora again to find out where the ancient runes classroom was located.

While she made her way through the school she heard shouting in one of the corridors and her curiosity got the better of her. As she was about to turn the corner a redhead appeared in front of her, arms waving around her and yelling at someone who was hidden from Katia's view.

"Now, leave me alone you arrogant pompous toe-rag!" Came the final shout as she turned to march away fuming.

But she couldn't do that as Katia was standing in her way. Unfortunately, the redhead realised that a bit too late and crashed into her. Both of their books flying to the ground.

"Oh, I'm so sorry!" The redhead cried, while the brunette mumbled a small 'sorry'.

"You're the new girl, right?" The young witch asked. "Potter and Black seemed quite disappointed when you didn't show up in our common room last night. Do you like your house?"

"Not really."

The Gryffindor was looking at her as if she was expecting something more out of her, but Katia just stood there for a minute until she awkwardly pointed to her book in the witch's hand, indicating that she wanted it back.

"Oh, right, sorry," she said as she handed the book she'd picked up back to its owner. But before that she glimpsed at the cover. "Ancient runes? I'm taking that as well! Would you like to go to the lesson together?"

Katia tried not to show how relieved she was that the girl had asked her that and nodded.

"I'm Lily by the way, Lily Evans."

The Russian took Lily's hand and shook, "Katia Yakushkina."

"Do you have a desk mate in this lesson, already?"

"No."

"Would you like to be mine? I quite hate sitting alone."

"Yes, I would," Katia answered with a small smile.

Perhaps talking to people and making new friends wasn't as hard as she made herself believe.