Flying lessons are scheduled to happen every other Saturday for the first term, and then only once a month after our holiday break. I was looking forward to them, not because I don't know how to fly, but because I won't be limited to staying below the tree lines like I am at the cottage. At the Weasley's house I can fly a little higher when we play quidditch together, but that's not often enough. I'm decent at all the quidditch positions, but I was best at being a Keeper or Chaser. I'm good at observing and defending, but I'm also quick and aggressive, so those positions worked best for me.
I don't have a plan to join the quidditch team, despite Charlie's constant begging. He's team captain this year, and most of the team is made of 6th and 7th years, plus Oliver Wood. I've only seen Oliver briefly in the common room, he's in Percy's year and was only a reserve player last year, but he's the Keeper full time this year.
Our whole year took the flying lessons on the same day, but half practiced after breakfast, and the other half went after lunch. We lions were partnered up with the Hufflepuffs, so there were a lot of muggleborns who have never flown on a broom before in our group. Lee and Kenneth weren't flyers themselves, and Kenneth's never even flown before either.
As first years, we weren't allowed to bring our own brooms, and Remus unfortunately insisted I actually follow this school rule, so we all lined up along the shabby school brooms. I looked at it, and it made me miss Uncle Reg's broom. It's older, but he had kept it in flawless condition, and so did I.
Madame Hooch went over the basics, and when we went to command our brooms up, most of us got it instantly. She coached the others for a while until eventually we were all mounted on ours. We went through the basic hovers and such, a few people struggling with that, or afraid of the heights. Cedric was one of the only two Hufflepuffs even comfortable on the brooms, the other was a girl named Margaret Otters, and she was comfortable with the broom itself, but not with heights.
We spent all morning there, until finally Madame Hooch allowed us to take a lap around the pitch.
"Care for a race?" I smirk challengingly to Cedric, the twins already on my side ready to go.
"Alright then!" Cedric grins and joins us. On the count of three, and all four of us took off like a bullet. Madame Hooch was yelling at us to slow down, but we were too busy having fun.
I'm lighter than each of the boys, so I took that advantage to lean flush against the broom and go as fast as it could go. It was slower than my broom and shaking at the speed, but it was still pretty fast. I loved the feel of the wind rushing past my face. I landed lithely on my feet after the lap, beating all three boys and smugly grinning at them.
"Losers!" I call out in a sneer at them, laughing proudly. The twins then tackled me off my broom to the ground, and we wrestled together on the ground, like we usually do. I pinned them both, and then sat on top of them. "Double losers now." I smirk at them while they glare at me from the ground. Cedric offers his hand to me to help me up, and I take it and bounce back up. "Thanks!"
"You're a great flyer! Are you going to join the team?" Cedric asks me quietly while grinning.
"Nah, probably not. Too much time spent in practice for my tastes." I tell him truthfully. "But I can't wait to see the matches!"
"The view is better from inside the pitch!" I hear a voice behind me calling out, and spin around to face Charlie. "Stop saying you aren't joining my team, each time you do, it breaks my heart!" He mock cries, but I know he really wants me on his team. I run over and give him a hug, which he scoops me up into.
"Stop trying to recruit me, I'm too lazy for your team. Just take the twins." I throw my hand over my shoulder to the twins. "I'll certainly cheer the loudest for you though." I grin at him.
"I'll get you on my team, Black." Charlie says firmly, showing he means business by saying my last name.
"Not likely, Weasley." I challenge back, and we break into laughter before he ruffles my hair. His team is around him, they must be meeting for a strategy meeting or practice. We only came to the pitch to do the laps before lunch.
"Are you going to disappear to one of your secret walks now?" Fred asks humorously as he joins us.
"No, I'm actually going to do all that homework I didn't do all week now. You know, since I was on my secret walks." I grin impishly at him. They haven't figured out where I go, but they know I'm not running. They find it funny enough that I'm hiding something that they don't care what it is, instead making it a running joke.
"I'm going to pretend that all I heard in that sentence was you're going to do your homework. Have fun, you guys!" Charlie says happily, walking away with his team.
"Actually, I think we need to make some plans. We've been here a whole week, and haven't pulled a prank yet." George adds in a whisper, and I smirk at him.
"Let's get to planning then." I respond, and we head back to our common room after lunch.
We plan out several pranks, ranging from tiny to huge, and make plans to scatter them all throughout the year. They are definitely brilliant at this, and I'm better at being lookout or secretly launching the pranks. Stealth is my specialty, while drawing attention is theirs. We also pulled in Lee after a few hours, to get an outside opinion on a few of our ideas. He was also good with pranks, so his opinion was great, but he didn't want to get caught in them. I guess even he started off as a good student before being totally corrupted by the twins.
Sunday I headed down to Hagrid's hut for tea. He sent an owl and invited me formally, which was adorable. I went down with Bruce since I wanted to ask Hagrid some questions anyway. We chatted happily about the forest and the creatures there, and he showed me the best little grouping of trees that Bruce could find insects and seeds to eat that was still safe for him away from the creatures inside. Bruce happily went into the trees, and I left him there to feast while I caught up with the half-giant. I wanted to know more about the magical beasts in the forest, and he promised to show me interesting ones during the year if he found them.
The twins and I's first few pranks were a success. They were just simple things like floating all the benches in the great hall at breakfast, so everyone had to stand until an older student or teacher lowered them back down. When the twins and I had released dung bombs in the library though, we were caught by Filch, who dragged us to his office and began to yell at us. I knew this was our opportunity to grab the map, so I released a magical smoke bomb I had bought in Diagon Alley into his office, and searched his confiscation drawer and snagged the holy grail of mischief and ran with the twins. We made it back to our common room before I showed them the spoils of our war.
"I finally found it!" I cheer out happily, and the twins look at me questioningly. "Watch this. I solemnly swear that I'm up to no good." I say cheerily, my wand pointed at the map.
We watched as the grubby old piece of paper came to life, ink spreading swiftly and forming into a drawing of the castle, hallways and all. It was a lot smaller than I had expected, just about the size of a large piece of paper, not the huge folded map from the movies.
"Wicked!" They both exclaim, leaning in to look at the map as it forms.
"Is that us?" George asks excitedly, pointing at our names on the map. There we were, in the common room, our three names all huddled together. Fred started to walk in a circle to test it out, and we watched his dot on the map mirror his actions. "This is brilliant, how did you know about it?"
"It's Dad's! He and his friends made this when they were here. They're the Marauders." I add, pointing to their titles on the map. "We do need to find a way to take this title off though." I add with a glare, looking at Wormtail's name.
"We'll figure it out, eventually. We're crafty like that." Fred adds in confidently, and I nod to him. "You hang on to this for us, since it's your dads. It'll be dead useful, though."
"And since I'll likely be with you for all your pranks anyway." I smirk at him, but take it anyway. "Mischief managed." I clear the map, saying it clearly and slowly just to show them how to do it.
"Also it'll probably be useful for your secret walks." George adds in with a smirk. It's been almost two months since school started, and they haven't figured it out. To throw them off, I've been actually running some nights, and one time I knew they were following me so I went to the library, and they got bored and left me alone.
"Let's go get some cocoa, now that we can get down there without getting caught after hours." I grin at them, and they jump up to join me. We sneak our way down to the kitchens, which I showed them the first weekend. The house elves all made us some delicious cocoa's and pastries and sent us on our way, and we found three new secret passageways we didn't know about and made our way happily back to our dorms.
Equipped with the map, we were now practically unstoppable in our pranks. We could sneak away without ever getting caught, so when we used a hex to make all of Snape's potion vials sing Christmas carols, we were completely safe from retribution. And since I'm an accomplished enough Occlumency user at this point, Snape couldn't peg it on me at all, even when he locked eyes with me, determined for it to be me.
Snape hasn't lessened up with his snarky comments and disdain for me, so he's getting the Royal Black treatment from me. It's a shame, I quite love Potions, it's easily one of my favorite and best subjects. It reminds me of Jason, he would have loved Potions, it's close to Chemistry.
The first Quidditch game of the season was great. Dad's taken me to see a few professional games live, but he doesn't have a favorite team, so it was more just that a co-worker had given him tickets and it was something fun to do. The first match of the year was Gryffindor versus Slytherin, and I cheered loud for Charlie along with the twins and Percy, but unfortunately, Gryffindor lost. The Slytherin team was a good team, but also were crafty at playing dirty when Madame Hooch wasn't looking. They didn't even really need to play like that, they were genuinely a good team, but some habits seem hard to break.
Several older Slytherins have tried bullying the younger first years, regardless of class or house. They can never get me though, either because they avoid trying to target me, or because I'm just always aware of my surroundings. It's hard to always be aware in a place with literal ghosts though, they can always sneak up on me, and it sends my nerves on edge when I'm not aware one is there.
Peeves was another interesting meeting for us. We were out setting up a prank, just a small one that would make buckets of water dump on students heads walking in from the Astronomy tower, and Peeves caught us all. I was on lookout, so I took his appearance as my greatest failure, because I couldn't catch the poltergeist before he started screeching out at us, trying to out-prank us pranksters. We had to haul ass out of the area, using the secret passages we knew well.
I got pissed, and started to research poltergeists to find a spell or charm that could alert us of their proximity. I found one that could at least tell us when he was within 10 meters of us, which was better than nothing. It was a mark against my pride that he could get through me and interfere. At least the regular ghosts will mostly ignore our antics, sometimes sticking around to see how they turn out.
Gryffindor won their match against Hufflepuff right before the holidays, so that was a great day for us. The twins, Lee and I all snuck some snacks from the kitchens to the common room and we helped set up a party for the team. Even Percy didn't scoff at our sneaking, he has a lot of pride in our school house, and he does like to celebrate when we are doing good.
I went home for the holiday, beyond excited to see my dad and Remus. It was unfortunately a full moon a few days after my arrival, which meant Remus would sleep through Christmas, but we would just celebrate it again with him the next day.
"Princess! My sweet, beautiful, Gryffindor Princess!" Dad joyfully greets me at the station when we all filed off the train. I ran right up to him and hugged him tight.
"Oh, I had you going for years there, didn't I?" I smirk arrogantly at him. "Greatest prank ever."
"Speaking of," He says, pulling back to look sternly at me. "Why haven't I gotten any letters from Minnie about you yet?"
"They only send letters home for kids who get caught doing pranks, Dad." I smirk at him, and he grins wolfishly at me before bursting into laughs.
"That's my girl!" He laughs out, "But really, you need to get caught for something, Minnie's lectures are the best. And I want a letter to frame, so make it a good one." I grin and laugh with him, and Molly overhears the last part and starts to scold him.
"Sirius Black, stop trying to get your daughter to get into trouble. Clearly, she's a good student and doesn't want to break rules like you did. And she's keeping the boys in line as well, don't encourage her to stop." Molly scolds him, and everyone else is having to bite their tongues to not laugh or correct her. Charlie's face turns red from how much he's holding back.
"Yeah, Dad." I playfully add in, going to stand next to the twins. "I keep them in line." We all turn in unison to the left, then center, then the right. "A line up." I grin out, and the twins and I burst into laughter at how perfectly that just worked out.
Sometimes, not always, but sometimes the twins and I are perfectly in sync with our thoughts. I think it's because I spent two lifetimes being a twin, so I know how they think. Even if the Weasley twins aren't as calm and focused as I was with Neji, nor as violent and callous as I was with Jason, they land somewhere in between them.
"Abigail." Molly says sternly, and I scamper back to Dad's side.
We part ways with the Weasley's getting on his bike and heading home. Bruce wakes up in his cage on the ride home, not happy to be locked in it while in the bike. I don't let him out though, it's still a long distance to home, and I feel better when I know where he is.
"Uncle Remy!" I say happily, running into my uncles' arms when we get home. He's tired right now, but he puts a smile on his face when he sees me, and it's a genuine one.
"Welcome home." Remus says happily. "It's too dull without you here. Your dad moped around for weeks after you left, you know. Kept singing half a song and looking around for you to finish it, it was quite sad." He teases Dad lightly, and Dad scoffs.
"Oh like you were any better, you kept looking up from your books about to talk about them but she wasn't there to hear." Dad counters back, "It was awful, he just would say the lame fun facts to me. I didn't need to know all the ways that the lovage plant was similar to celery. I didn't need to know it at all, yet it's stuck in my mind now, all because Moony read me a whole article about it because you weren't here."
I flash a smirk to Remus, "Is it really like celery?" I ask with interest, leaning towards my uncle. "Tell me, is it just in taste, or appearance? How about how it's grown?"
"Well that's the fascinating part, you see-" Remus starts to play along, but he's cut off by a groan from Dad.
"Not again!" Dad groans out, walking away while Remus and I laugh at him, successfully pranking him. I know Remus never would have read me an article like that in the first place, so he clearly just did that to irritate him while I was gone.
"Oh, Remy, how do I add or remove things from the map?" I ask him innocently.
"Add?" Dad overhears as he returns to the room we are in. "What could possibly be added? We explored every inch of that school." He adds proudly, arrogance dripping in his statement.
I sit back in my chair, fake examining my nails. "Oh? You discovered everything? Even... The Room of Requirement?" I smirk at him, matching his arrogance.
"The what?" He asks, blanching at not having heard of it. "There's no such room."
"Oh but there is, Father." I reply pompously. "Seventh floor, opposite the tapestry of Barnabas the Barny. Magical room that turns into whatever the user wants it to be. I've been using it as a private gym all term."
"That sounds bloody useful. Stop out-Marauding me, you're making me look bad." Dad grumbles out. "Now, tell me about your lessons. How's Snivellous?"
"I gave him a choice, either get a bright young student, who wants to learn, that he treats fairly," I start to say, and I hear Remus sigh, knowing there's an 'or' about to come. "Or, he gets Sirius Black's daughter. So far, he's chosen Sirius Black's daughter. I think he missed you, Dad." I grin at him, and he roars in laughter. I launch into telling him about the pranks, he loved the singing potion vial ideas. When he started to make recommendations, Remus cut him off and sent me off to bed.
We spent the whole break happily together, catching up on what's been going on. The Aurors finally are getting some warrants to search old known Death Eaters homes to confiscate cursed items that can be used to harm muggles, so he's been having fun with that at work. I told him about the Defense teacher being his fangirl, and he grinned proudly at that. He also asked if she was pretty, and I told him her wedding ring was pretty.
Dad's still a flirt with women, but he doesn't date them as much, and is careful with them. He doesn't want another surprise dropped at his doorstep. He claims he's busy enough raising me anyway, which is fine by me, but I hope he finds a special someone to be with. Then again, he's practically married to Remus, they just aren't romantically involved. They fight like a married couple though, which is always fun to watch. Good luck to whatever woman tries to pry them apart, whether it be Tonks or someone else. That's still a strange concept to me, Tonks is my schoolmate and Charlie's friend, she's so much younger than Remus, I don't know if they would have ever gotten together if it weren't for the Order, I'm curious how that will work out in the future.
I got my annual Christmas jumper from Molly, she makes mine black with a star on it above my A. She loves my middle name a lot, and ties it in to my Christmas jumper every year. When I'm not causing her headaches, she calls me her 'little star'. Since that's not often, it's nice when I hear it. I think I love her lectures better though, she gives the best ones in this life. Still nothing rivals a Bat-Lecture, but she comes close.
Dad and Remus gave me loads of sweets, though it's mostly for sharing since I don't have a big sweet tooth. Remus also helped me remove Wormtail's name on the map, but we couldn't add the Room of Requirement for some reason. I think it might be unplottable, so I was satisfied with just knowing where it was. I was touched when he not only removed Wormtail's name, but replaced it with my own hero mantel, Shadow. Dad thought he did it because I can still produce little shadows sometimes, and I like to lurk in them to scare him, but I know it's because Remus was paying homage to my hero name. Dad did help me change it so everyone appeared as footsteps instead of little dots, he thought the idea was charming. I just wanted it to look more like the map from the movies, since it was clever and more useful than just a dot.