Cherry Lips // s. black

-OCTOBER. 3.-

They sat in silence for a little while, eating cakes and watching students muck around in the chilly weather. The group of Ravenclaw girls from Charms had rolled a giant contraption down to the lake and began calling out to the giant squid.

She sipped the tea that tasted like autumn. "Oh, and I found a little room in the castle when I got lost the other day, it just appeared there."

"That might be what the house elves call 'the room of come and go'. Yer lucky you found it Milly, very rare." Hagrid mused, not seeing the shock on Carmilla's face at his words. She shuddered.

"House elves?"

"Oh yes, who do you think cooks all yer food and cleans yer dorm?"

Carmilla gulped at the thought of a little person running around and touching all her things as she slept. She already had to deal with Sass jumping on her bed and waking her up before the sun rose every morning.

"Well, it explains the paint stains disappearing, I guess." She murmured, eating another rock cake. "And please don't send another one of your owls. It bit Ace on the hand."

"But Chirpy is such a friendly bird!"

"I'm just browsing...." Carmilla said quietly, trying very hard not to roll her eyes at the suspicious librarian, who was watching her challenging.

More people were in the library this time. It was a Friday night, so the students who weren't procrastinating and hiding fireworks from the teachers were getting their homework done so they could enjoy the weekend. Ace was somewhere in the shelves, looking for arithmancy books.

Carmilla hurried to her hidden desk and pulled out the crumbling map of Hogwarts she had hidden. She was determined to finish the map soon, but she needed to work out a charm so she could map all the floors on one piece of paper.

She could still add details to the grounds of Hogwarts though, so she set to work drawing little pumpkins around Hagrid's hut.

The main reason she had left the common room was because the older students felt the need to celebrate their first week back. This meant there would be a party raging through the dorms and Ravenclaw tower, June had explained.

Because tomorrow was Saturday, they could be up as late as they wanted and drink as much as they wanted, students had the whole weekend to recover.

"Can I sit?"

Carmilla looked up, ready to stare at whoever it was until they got uncomfortable and left [a common occurrence], but then she nodded and smiled when she saw who it was.

"What are you drawing?" Charlie asked her, setting down a stack of books.

"I'm making a map. Of Hogwarts. I keep getting lost on the way to classes." She said. She started drawing the large tree near the black lake, the one that people carved their names into.

"Smart thinking. I still lose my way to the owlery."

"Really? I was forty minutes late to defence class and got a detention for it because I got lost trying to send a letter." Carmilla said with a sigh, glancing down at the parchment Charlie had started writing on. "What are you doing?"

"The essay for herbology, its due on Monday and I'd rather not stay up Sunday night trying to remember what scientific category aloe vera is in."

Carmilla stared at him. "Huh?"