Hannah woke me up before breakfast, and told me that I had fallen asleep doing Transfiguration homework. We walked to the Great Hall and sat with Cedric, and some of his friends, and then headed to our first class of the day.

We had to go outside for Herbology, taught by our head of house, Professor Sprout. She talked about different types of plants, and I listened to some of it, but the Slytherins were being distracting, so I asked Hannah if I could borrow her notes after classes. 

I checked my schedule, then, surprised, turned to Hannah. "Flying?!  On what, broomsticks?!" I asked incredulously.

"Yeah. I'm really nervous. I don't think I'll be good at it at all." Since we were already outside for Herbology, and all we had to do was walk around to the "Quidditch Pitch", we were there early.

“Wait, it’s actually broomsticks?” Hannah nodded. 

We started talking about things like classes and stuff, and a few minutes later the Ravenclaws filtered in.

"Who's that?" I asked, pointing to a Ravenclaw boy. I had seen him around a couple times, he seemed like a pretty good guy.

"I'm not sure. I don't know most of the people here." Hannah replied. 

"Okay"

Then, a teacher came onto the field, and started talking about broom safety and stuff. Then she told us to hold out our hands over our brooms and say "up". 

It took me a few tries, but I finally got it. I could only raise a few inches though, and other people went as high as Madam Hooch had said. Hannah went a little higher than me, but still lower than most people. Although, a few people were lower or didn't even leave the ground at all.

The class soon ended, and it was time for lunch. 

As we were walking outside for lunch, I heard McGonagall and Snape having a conversation in the Transfiguration room. I told Hannah to go ahead, and I would be right there.

".... she reminds me so much of her, Minerva. If I hadn't known she had only... him, I would think she was her child"

"Severus, you've taught others that look like her"

"But they were nothing like her. She acts so much like her." His voice hardened again. "Now if you'll excuse me, I'll be going to lunch now." I quickly looked away and continued outside just as they walked out of the classroom.  

I found where Hannah and Cedric were sitting, Cedric with some of his other friends too, Hannah looking uncomfortable about it. 

"Hey guys" I said, walking over to them and sitting down.

Cedric introduced me to his friends, and I said hi, then told the two of them what happened, Cedric's friends looking confused as to what I was talking about. 

After I was done, Cedric said, "So you must remind him of someone he once knew, that has a child that probably goes here, a boy."

I nodded, "And, I apparently also act like her. So, we have more to go on, now." 

"So I guess you'll be telling Malfoy all this stuff, because of your investigation together." Hannah said bitterly.

"Yeah, I guess." I replied, not wanting to talk to him after yesterday, but knowing I already agreed to it.

"I say you should drop him, and just work on it with us. We're actually your friends, and we aren't going to insult you for absolutely no reason" Hannah said, with good reason, but I couldn't just stop working with him. I'd have to at least tell him that I'm done working with him.

I shrugged and took a bite. "So in flying class today..." I changed the subject to classes. We held a flimsy conversation until I spotted Draco. I sighed and quickly wrote down what I had heard earlier with a purple gel pen I brought from home. No one paid me any mind, because at that point everyone was listening to Cedric’s friend Robert tell a story. 

When I was done writing, I clipped the pen to the notebook and walked over to the blonde. “Got some more information,” I informed him, handing over the notebook. I started to turn back, but stopped when he snickered. 

“What, is my handwriting not fancy enough for you?”

“It is pretty horrible. What I was thinking, however, was that of course you-”

“Is this because I’m practically a muggle-born?” I interrupted, patience running thin. 

“Yes. You make it so glaringly obvious. I’d appreciate it if you could pretend you’re not while we are working together. I hate to think about the fact that I’m working with a mudbl-”

“You know what?” I asked. He looked very annoyed that I kept interrupting him. “I’ll do this without you.”

“Fine.” Draco crossed his arms. “I’ll just tell Snape that you were spying on him. I’m sure that’ll give him reason to finally punish you. You’ll never figure it out then.”

I didn’t say anything for a few seconds. Draco had cornered me. Finally, I nodded. “Okay. If that’s how it’s going to be.” He smirked triumphantly until I ripped the page out of the notebook, crumpled it, and threw it into the lake. “I guess I won’t be going on with it after all. But I’m not going to work with you if you are just going to insult me. I gave you a second chance because I thought you deserved to prove you aren’t the same as your family, and you still do, you just need some time to get out of that mindset. But until then, I can’t talk to you everyday, trying to ignore the constant insults coming out of your mouth.” I shook my head and turned away before he could respond. 

When I got back to my friends, they were all staring at Draco and I. 

“What did you tell him?” Hannah asked. “He looks pretty surprised.”

I shrugged. “Pretty much I don’t want to talk to him if he’s going to keep insulting me. Oh, um, we have to drop the investigation or Draco will tell Snape and he’ll give us detention or something. I definitely don’t want to find out what he makes kids do during detention.” I shuddered. 

The rest of lunch went by without any more mention of Draco or Snape, although my mind didn’t seem to get the memo. It didn’t help that the conversation quickly became all about Quidditch, a very popular wizard sport that everyone but me knew about. Cedric and two of the three other guys we were sitting with were on the Hufflepuff team. 

Lunch ended before long and it was time for my second double class. This one was with the Gryffindors, which was nice because that was the only house besides my own I had real friends in. Not that I was complaining, I had somehow made more friends here in two days than I had in all of 4th, 5th, and 6th grade. The class was charms, one I had been looking forward to. It was the class that, by the first chapter of the textbook I read on the train, taught more or less what I was expecting with the magic wands. 

We quickly found Harry and Ron and sat next to them. The tables were long ones, and so I was seated between Hannah and Harry, Ron on Harry’s right. Much to Ron’s dismay, Hermione sat on the empty seat next to him. 

“Malfoy was going on about how he doesn’t like Hufflepuffs when I passed him in the hall a minute ago. Any idea what that was about?” Harry whispered to me.

I sighed, “I told him I couldn’t talk to him if he was going to be a jerk. I guess he responded by being a jerk. Nice.”

Harry shrugged. “Told you.”

“I figured he would be just like his dad,” Ron agreed. 

“Can you guys stop talking? I’m trying to listen to the teacher. Some of us do want to know what to expect from the class,” Hermione snapped, way too loud for my liking. 

Hermione’s comment drew Flitwick’s attention. “No speaking while I am teaching. Five points from Hufflepuff and Gryffindor.” Hermione gave us a look that clearly meant she was upset we had lost her points for her house.

We stopped talking and soon enough he got to the actual lesson. He started off basic, with a charm to light the end of our wand like a flashlight, and the counter-charm. It was simple, but took us a few tries to accomplish. Hermione was the only one to succeed on the first try, but she had practiced it before. She still won Gryffindor the ten points back, though. It was the first bit of magic I had succeeded in, besides some mishaps before I got my letter, and I was very excited when it finally worked. 

On our way back to the common room I was chattering about finally using magic, as well as in the common room, on the way to the great hall and during dinner. To be fair, so was Hannah. And most of the other first year Hufflepuffs that hadn’t purposefully done magic before this. 

That night I went to bed a lot later than the one before, I finished my remaining transfiguration and potions homework and the small amount of herbology and charms homework that was assigned. 

A/N: I changed the title to Aurora's Journey, which I think is a way better title. I know what some big events are that are going to happen, but I'm open to suggestions. The scheduling is a bit different than in the books, but I did write up a class schedule for her, so it will be consistent. I think that the year is going to be later, because it doesn't really matter to the plot and I know pop culture references from a lot more recent than the 80's, I was born after 2000.