The Girl Who Lived

Chapter 6

Raven

The next morning was slightly better than Raven had hoped for. She woke up early, around five in the morning, and snuck to the girls' bathing room to wash her hair and scrub her skin. Why the girl felt the need to bathe twice a day, she couldn't say for sure, except for the fact that it was a nice way to prepare herself for her classes.

For example, her first class was Charms... needless to say, it wasn't her best class. "One of the most rudimentary skills a wizard or witch must learn is Levitation. Or, the ability to make objects 'fly'." her professor smiled, and the girl shivered at the thought. The thought of flying made Raven's head reel, and it made her thankful their test subjects weren't animated objects. "Do you have your feathers?" the professor asked, and Hermione quickly grabbed hers to show the teacher. So eager to learn, that one.

"Now, don't forget the nice wrist movement we've been practicing. Just swish, and flick." the man spoke, gently swaying his wand in the air. Then he had the class repeat his movements, as if everyone there were tiny children... everyone was a child, of course, but not so young as to make them repeat the movements. "Oh, and enunciate, 'Wingardium Leviosa.' Well go on, off you go then."

It was then things went wrong. Well for Raven, at least. After ten minutes of people accidentally burning their feather, getting it to actually fly (like Hermione), and even minor explosions that only affected the wizard or witch in question, Raven picked up her wand and attempted to make the stupid thing fly. How hard could it be? "Wingardium Leviosa." her wrist swished and flicked perfectly, she spoke clearly, but something else happened. Her wand warmed up to the point of almost burning her skin, and an explosion came out of nowhere.

The entire class was in shambles... everyone's uniform was covered in soot or ripped in some places... the only person that wasn't affected was Raven. Everyone, including Harry, practically glared at her. Draco, of course, was the first to start accusations. "She did that on purpose. Look at her, she doesn't even look guilty!"

"She made sure everyone but her got dirty, too!" another voice rang out, but Raven couldn't place where she had heard that one. All she could do was shake her head and run out of the room, leaving behind her wand and books. She ran as fast as she could do the halls, twisting and turning down random corridors until she found herself standing in front of Professor Snape's classroom. He had the period off, and was probably off sulking somewhere. She opened the door, and breathed a sigh of relief when she saw no sign of life inside, and slunk her way to her usual seat with hot tears streaming down her face.

Why she came to this class, she wouldn't know. The sounds of the burners flickering were comforting and the dry scent of herbs that wafted from the room certainly calmed her when her nerves were frazzled as well. Her shoulders shook, and the quiet tears wouldn't stop streaming down her face. But instead of sitting there moping, she stood up on shaky legs and picked up one of the textbooks on the shelf, attempting to read it. She found it easy to cope with sadness by reading or drawing, and since she had abandoned her charcoals and papers, this had to be the alternative. The clicking of the doorknob was heard, and her head shot up to find Snape staring back at her in surprise and annoyance. "Miss Potter, you don't have potions this period. I'll have to deduct points for skipping." his voice was a whisper as usual, cold and hard as stone. The girl only nodded, wiping her tears with the sleeves of her robes.

It must have been then that Snape realized what she was doing there and stepped towards her hesitantly. "What's the matter, girl?" he asked, his voice betraying his clear annoyance. It was as if he already knew where this was headed-- someone had rejected her feelings, or someone played a prank on her. "We were l-learning the levitation s-spell, a-and---"

"And your feather burned and the kids laughed, correct?" he interjected, and Raven quickly shook her head. "I w-wouldn't cry over th-that, sir." she sniffled, wiping more tears away. "The whole classroom exploded, everyone except me was caught in the blast."