Carmilla set off across the grounds of Hogwarts, weaving between the greenhouses and groups of friends that were scattered leisurely across the lawn.
The weather in autumn was unpredictable, but the slowly browning leaves created a nice view of the forest. There were also pumpkins growing around Hagrid's hut, but she didn't know what they were for.
Luckily, she was able to come to tea. June had hurriedly written an essay about shield spells for Professor Montgomery under Carmilla's name. She had done all the actual work around it, and the fact she had already used a shield spell that week helped, she just couldn't write.
Carmilla knocked on the large wooden door and was quickly let in by Hagrid.
His hut was nice, a little fireplace and two lumpy couches to one side and a kitchen bench with lots of pots and pans hanging above it. A large bed was at the back, hidden from view by the collections of dried herbs and garlics hanging from the roof.
The windows were open to let the warm breeze in, and the flowerpot she had knocked over a few days prior had been righted.
"Carmilla, how'yer?" Hagrid asked gruffly, fumbling with the hissing teapot on the coffee table.
"Good. I like Hogwarts." She said simply, helping find some cups in the kitchen. There was a transparent brown one and one that looked like a dragon egg with its top cut off. "I don't like some of the teachers though."
"The defence bloke?" Hagrid asked, knocking the flowerpot over himself. He righted it and Carmilla carried the cups over to the coffee table. "Well, you've only gottem for the year, so you'll be fine."
She sat down on the couch with a huff. "He gave me a detention. Me and Sirius had to clean the floors... Can't he just use magic?"
"Black? Stay away from those blokes, they'll only get you in trouble," Hagrid advised, and filled up the dragon egg mug for her. "Merlin knows you don't need any more o' dat this year."
"What do you mean trouble?"
Hagrid shook his head. He was flushed. "Nuffin', you said you got a detention didn't ya?"
Carmilla took the tea and didn't press anymore. He probably didn't want to mention her teething problem where someone could listen in. The tea smelt like the gardens outside his window and the crunchy brown leaves everywhere and banana bread all at the same time, somehow. She looked out his window. "Why are you growing pumpkins?"
Hagrid's eyes twinkled. She could tell he was proud of the massive vegetables. "For Halloween. Decorations for the feast, and Sluggy's asked for some for his ball specifically."
"Mistress Theeny always said it was the devil's holiday," Carmilla muttered, picking up a rock cake. Was it celebrating her?
"No one has ta celebrate if they aren't wanting to, but it's a whole lotta fun."
"...Slughorn has a Halloween ball? Do people in his club have to go?" she asked, biting into the rock cake. It was sort of like a scone, with pebbles through it instead of chocolate chips. Her teeth sunk right through the rocks. It didn't taste half bad.
"Of course you'were picked for the slug club! Always knew you'were a smart one. From what I know, y' just dance around and pretend laugh at 'is jokes. The foods supposed to be good though, and you'll see meh pumpkins!" He looked out onto the pumpkin patch as he ate another pebbly cake.
"I finished my potion first I guess, but that's not that amazing... I guess it'll give me something to do." She said quietly, watching something run through the forest at lightning speed, the trees pushed out of the way, though nothing was there.
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?"
"It's about plants that heal burns, because we did that lesson on the fire flowers," Charlie explained. "I think your herbology lesson's the day after mine."
She nodded and added a few slimy tentacles to the black lake on her parchment. She'd find some books on healing plants and ask June to help her tonight.
They wouldn't be sleeping.
A fifth year Ravenclaw had figured out how to hook up a giant speaker to a record player.
"Mmmfffp," was all Carmilla could muster the next morning, as either Ace or their cat jumped on the end of her navy-blue bed. They had been awake for so long last night, trying to sleep as the party continued below them, that Carmilla herself felt as if she had a hangover.
"Get up! Get up!"
It was Ace, then. Carmilla shoved her head further into her pillow and closed her eyes to block out the sunlight glaring through the now open curtains.
After some shuffling around, the dorm went silent again, and she dozed off peacefully.
Carmilla didn't know how long she had been asleep for, but when she rose again, her friend's beds were made, and a letter was thumbtacked to the back of the door. She sneezed. Carmilla squinted at the letter and pushed Sass off the end of her bed.
"They do know I can't read, right?"
She brushed her hair, patting it down in case she missed a spot, and put on the dark red lipstick she had sitting next to her toothbrush on their shelf of bathroom supplies. She was halfway through the stick. Hopefully Hogsmeade sold the same colour. And cheap shampoo and conditioner. Her hair was not benefiting from the bar of soap.
It was the weekend. No one had to wear uniforms. Carmilla opened her trunk and glared down at the little collection of clothes folded up. Ted looked up at her with faded button eyes. She pulled on a white shirt and patted out the wrinkles, then her black skirt with the little stars embroidered into it.
Considering the last week of random weather they had, Carmilla tied a Ravenclaw jumper around her waist with no idea who's it was. They all looked the same.
Nearly everyone was rejoicing in the two days off before another week of school, apart from the groups of hungover Ravenclaws that were moping about the school, staying away from the harsh sunlight. You would think they were the vampires.
She was nearly knocked over by a gang of first years that seemed to have discovered sugar highs on her way to the library.
Most people would much rather spend the warm sunny day outside, so they did. Thus, the library was next to empty, and the perfect place to hang out without hordes of groaning Ravenclaws that whimpered pathetically every time you spoke at a normal volume.
Carmilla found her friends hidden at the back of the library, behind a bookcase of crusty newspapers, with a stack of toast between them. Ace was doing her eyeliner in a hand mirror, sitting in an empty plush chair with her legs over one side and her back against the other.
June had toast in one hand and a paintbrush in the other. She was painting what looked like little flower stems on her chunky white boots that went to her knees.
"You're allowed to paint in here?" Carmilla asked.
"No. These are for when we go to Hogsmeade. I'm trying to decide between sunflowers and lilies." June mused, looking between the two colours on her little watercolour palette that was sitting atop a stack of books.
"Did someone say Lily?"
"The flower, James, not the girl." Ace groaned.
Carmilla sat down on the other armchair next to her friends when she heard the scuffling an aisle over and saw the messy haired boy's head pop around the corner.
"Why are you in here anyway?" Carmilla asked, pulling some parchment out of the bag she had brought with her and picking up one of June's unused paintbrushes. She was planning to paint Hagrid's hut for him.
James huffed and flopped down next to her, picking up a piece of toast without asking.
"Moony's working on an essay and Lily flower's with Snivellus doing potions stuff, so I was glaring at him from behind a bookshelf for a while, but it got boring."
"Stalker much?" Ace grumbled.
"Are you guys going to a party tonight?" James queried, looking between Ace's make up and June's boots. "I didn't know there was a party!"
"No, but there is a higher expectation for girls to present themselves nicely. You wouldn't know what I'm talking about... and I ran out of canvases," June added, deciding on sunflowers. She dipped her paintbrush into another coloured pot.
"I don't have to try; I always look great."
"Hello Sirius." Carmilla said, as Sirius put his head on her shoulder, looking at the painting she'd begun. It was only the general brick colour in the shape of Hagrid's hut, and some grass and orange blobs she would shape into pumpkins eventually. She hadn't painted much, so it was already pretty splotchy.
"Milla, why are you friends with such losers?" Ace groaned, putting away her eyeliner and pulling out her piece of thread that she would weave between her fingers to make patterns.
"I don't know, because I was put in a dorm with you?" Carmilla replied, dipping her paintbrush in the cup of water and then in a little puddle of dark orange paint.
"No! These two, look at their annoying faces!"
Sirius smirked. His hair was tickling Carmilla's neck, and she shoved him away. "Annoyingly handsome face."
"I wanna punch him. Milla, can I punch him?" Ace asked. Her eyelids had bright sparkly pink lines on them that she had somehow got perfectly even.
"There you are!" Peter and Remus strolled up to the group, Remus with a stack of books and essays in his arms, Peter with an entire plant pot. James had finished their toast by now, and Sirius was attempting to ambush Carmilla's painting.
Remus came around a bookshelf, a stack of books and parchment in his hands. He looked tired, and his hair was limp. "I'm sorry about these two, they escaped."
Peter watched as James and Ace began throwing used paintbrushes at each other, his hand in a bag of sweets now. The plant pot had disappeared. That reminded Carmilla. She had to go back to the third floor and investigate the sweet-smelling corridor.
"Well get them back in their cage!" Ace snapped, narrowly avoiding being hit by a paintbrush.
June took the nearly empty glass of paint water from James, who was attempting to tip it over Ace's pink hair and swished her paintbrush around in it. "Milla, either we leave, or you tell your incredibly clingy pets to fuck off."
They all went silent, staring at Carmilla. She didn't know when she had become the deciding factor, but she patted Sirius on the head patronizingly, ruining his dramatic puppy eyed look. "Seeya."
"Ha!" Ace muttered. Remus dragged his friends away by the scruff of their necks, Peter holding the books and parchment and empty mug of tea. The bag of sweets had disappeared. He dropped a few on the way out.
"Idiots."
"Done!" June propped up her finished boots. The sunflowers looked beautiful. They were a bit smudged, but it only made the chunky boots look cooler. Ace clapped her hands and put the empty plate on her head like a hat.
"You could do my pyjama's if you run out of things to paint." Carmilla suggested. She started to paint the outline of the pumpkins and fences with a thin paintbrush.
"Sweet! I could do camellia flowers, or maybe a sunset on the back with-"