Calysta was absolutely, utterly sure she would never meet a boy she hated more than Dudley, but that was before she met Draco Malfoy.

The boy was absolutely intent of getting on her nerves every single time he saw her. Although the first year Gryffindors didn't have any classes with the Slytherins except potions, Calysta still felt that that was plenty enough time spent in his presence.

When Calysta, Jeff, Regulus and Felix were casually conversing in the common room, they saw Percy the prefect pin something to the notice board. Naturally driven with curiosity, Calysta stood up and took a look at it, groaning loudly.

"What's wrong?" asked Felix, looking up from his book (as usual).

"We start flying lessons on Thursday," she sighed.

"So? You've been looking forward to those, haven't you?" asked Jeff.

"With the Slytherins," Calysta finished.

Loud groans met her statement. The main reason why Calysta wasn't happy with this arrangement was because she'd been looking forward to flying lessons the most. It was most pitiful that Malfoy had to be there to ruin it. She didn't want to make a fool of herself on a broom the first time she rode it, and she didn't want Malfoy, of all people to be there.

"Typical," said Calysta darkly. "Just what I always wanted. To make a fool of myself on a broomstick in front of Malfoy."

"You don't know that you'll make a fool of yourself," said Felix reasonably. "Anyway, I know Malfoy's always going on about how good he is at Quidditch, but I bet that's all talk."

Malfoy certainly did talk about flying a lot. He complained loudly about first years never getting on the House Quidditch teams and told long, boastful stories that always seemed to end with him narrowly escaping Muggles in helicopters.

In fact, just last potions lesson, Calysta had most unfortunately been paired up with him, and was supposed to brew a potion to cure rashes.

Malfoy seemed more intent of boasting about his skills than doing the actual work.

"I've got the latest broom," he was telling Calysta, who was mixing the cauldron, slowly adding the shredded dragonfly wings.

"Good for you," she responded in monotone.

"You know there was this one time when I..."

"When you got a fail grade because you didn't help me do potions?" she interrupted, looking up from the cauldron.

Malfoy scowled. "For your kind information, I'm doing..."

"Nothing," she interrupted again. "Unless you could standing there and boasting."

"I'm not boasting," he said loudly.

"No, you're bragging," she responded smugly.

"Watch your mouth, Potterette, I'll have you know I can easily have you expelled from here, then you can go back to that foul muggle hole you came from."

At this, Calysta felt rather offended by his words. "And I'll have you know, you spoiled blonde brat, that if you don't shut your mouth, I'll make sure you won't be able to fly on a broomstick at all."

"Malfoy, Potter!" Snape exclaimed. "Would you be so kind as to enlighten us on why you are having a shouting match instead of brewing the cure for rashes?"

"You see, Professor, Potterette here was..."

"Silence!" Snape snarled. "Get to work."

Calysta snickered under her breath. Once she was done brewing her potion, Snape gave her an Outstanding, and when she went to pack her things, she dropped her quill on the ground. Bending down to get it, she gave herself a sly grin as she also tied Malfoy's shoelaces together. When the blonde went to give Professor Snape his essay, he tripped over his tied feet and fell down, sprawled on the floor. The class roared with laughter, especially the Gryffindors. 

Draco glared at Calysta, who pretended she had nothing to do with it.

He'd  have to think twice before crossing her again.

On Thursday morning, Calysta was too nervous to eat anything, being rather anxious about the flying lessons. At breakfast, she sat in between Harry and Felix, playing around with the blueberries in her plate.

Hermione Granger sat right opposite Harry, wedging herself between Neville.

"I've just checked this book out from the library," she was telling anyone who would listen, flashing up a copy of a light green book entitled Quidditch through the Ages.

"Good for you," Calysta muttered rudely.

Neville was hanging on to Hermione's every word, desperate for anything that might help him hang on to his broomstick later, but everybody else was very pleased when Hermione's lecture was interrupted by the arrival of the mail.

Calysta and Harry hadn't had any mail since Hagrid's invitation, and Malfoy was only too keen to point this out. He kept getting packages from home, of sweets, which caused him to boast gloatingly on the Slytherin table every morning.

"Poor Potterette," Malfoy shook his head loudly. "Every day she looks up expecting to see the owl, but she doesn't."

Calysta merely ignored him, trying not to let his words get to her.

"Oh, look mother's sent me another package," he'd tell his friends. "I do feel sorry for the Potters. No parents to send them things..."

At that, his package suddenly exploded all over his face, but it was hard to tell exactly how it happened. Regulus had sworn he'd seen Calysta shove her wand up her sleeve, but she denied she had nothing to do with it, adjusting her sleeve and telling him she'd left her wand upstairs.

A barn owl brought Neville a small package from his grandmother. He opened it excitedly and showed them a glass ball the size of a large marble, which seemed to be full of white smoke. 

"It's a Remembrall!" he explained. "Gran knows I forget things — this tells you if there's something you've forgotten to do. Look, you hold it tight like this and if it turns red — oh . . ." 

His face fell, because the Remembrall had suddenly glowed scarlet, ". . . you've forgotten something . . ." 

Neville was trying to remember what he'd forgotten when Draco Malfoy, who was passing the Gryffindor table, snatched the Remembrall out of his hand. 

Calysta stood up, at the same time as Harry, Ron and Jeff. They were all half-hoping for a reason to fight Malfoy, but Professor McGonagall, who could spot trouble half a mile away arrived, quick as a flash.

"What's going on?"

"Malfoy's got my Remembrall, Professor."

Scowling, Malfoy quickly dropped the Remembrall on the table.

"Just looking," he said, and sloped away with Crabbe and Goyle behind him. 

At three-thirty that afternoon, Calysta, Jeff, Regulus, Felix and the other Gryffindors hurried down the front steps onto the ground for their first flying lesson. It was a clear, breezy day, and the grass rippled under their feet as they marched down the sloping lawns toward a smooth, flat lawn on the opposite side ofthe grounds to the forbidden forest, whose trees were swaying darkly in the distance. 

The Slytherins were already there, and so were thirty broomsticks lying in neat lines on the ground. Calysta had heard Fred and George Weasley complain about the school brooms, saying that some of them started to vibrate if you flew too high, or always flew slightly to the left.

Their teacher, Madam Hooch, arrived. She had short, gray hair, and yellow eyes like a hawk.

"Well, what are you all waiting for?" she barked. "Everyone stand by a broomstick. Come on, hurry up."

Calysta found an empty spot near the Avery boy, and beckoned one of her friends to fill the empty spot beside her. Felix headed to step in next to her, but was pushed to the side by Malfoy, who filled in the empty spot beside her.

She scowled. Just her luck.

The brunette looked down at her broomstick. The handle was bent, and had a few twigs sticking out of it at odd angles. 

"We have to use this poor excuse of a broomstick?" Malfoy remarked loudly. 

"Go get your own then," Calysta blurted, unable to bite back the rude opinions that usually came out of her mouth when Malfoy was around.

"Did it escape your mind that first years aren't allowed brooms?" He drawled. "Or do you suffer from short term memory loss?"

"I wish I did suffer from short term memory loss," Calysta bit back. "Then at least I could forget you."

Malfoy clicked his tongue in annoyance, and he was nearly about to say something when Madam Hooch spoke.

"Stick out your right hand over your broom," called Madam Hooch at thefront, "and say 'Up!'"

"UP!" everyone shouted.

Calysta's broom was one of the few that jumped into her hand at once. In fact, when she looked around, only Harry, Regulus and Malfoy had brooms in their hands. Hermione's had rolled over and refused to move, and Jeff's took a few tries until it flew into his hand too. Felix's broom did not budge. Calysta spared a glance at Avery, who was holding his broom in his hand too.

Madam Hooch then showed them how to mount their brooms without sliding off the end, and walked up and down the rows correcting their grips. Calysta delighted when she told Malfoy he'd been doing it wrong for years. 

"Now, when I blow my whistle, you kick off from the ground, hard," said Madam Hooch. "Keep your brooms steady, rise a few feet, and then come straight back down by leaning forward slightly. On my whistle — three —two —"

But Neville, nervous and jumpy and frightened of being left on the ground, pushed off hard before the whistle had touched Madam Hooch's lips.

"Come back, boy!" she shouted, but Neville was rising straight up like a cork shot out of a bottle — twelve feet — twenty feet.

Calysta did the only logical thing she could think of. Pushing herself hard from the ground, she found herself rising into the air. The wind whistled past her ears and she soared up high, above the grassy plains of the Hogwarts grounds. This was flying, this was wonderful. It felt like she was just starting to breathe all over again.

Her broom was easy to control, and she chased Neville, who was struggling to control his broom, with her own.

"Miss Potter," called Madam Hooch, blowing her whistle. "Come back down this instant!"

But Calysta didn't care. Neville was already sliding off the end of his broom, his white, scared face looking down at the ground. The Potter girl caught up to him, and just as he fell, Calysta flew underneath him, catching him with her broom. 

He was rather heavy, and she found her own broom sink lower and lower at a faster speed. Trying to control her broom, she tilted it upwards, slowing it down considerably, before dropping to the ground exhaustedly, falling in a crumpled heap with Neville and her broomstick. A crack indicated Neville had broken something.

Calysta stood up, brushing out strands of hair falling off her ponytail. 

Jeff, Regulus and Felix were clapping and cheering for her, high-fiving her repeatedly.

"That was bloody brilliant!" Assessed Ron.

"You nailed it," Jeff told her proudly.

Madam Hooch was bending over Neville, her face as white as his. 

"Broken wrist," she muttered. "You're very lucky Miss Potter here was there to save you, otherwise you would have broken much more. Come on boy, up you get."

She helped Neville stand up. "Potter, was that your first time on a broom?" She turned to Calysta.

The Potter girl nodded. 

"Impressive," she heard Madam Hooch mutter. 

She turned to the rest of the class.

"None of you is to move while I take this boy to the hospital wing! You leave those brooms where they are or you'll be out of Hogwarts before you can say 'Quidditch.' Come on, dear."

Neville, his face tear-streaked, clutching his wrist, hobbled off with Madam Hooch, who had her arm around him.

No sooner were they out of earshot than Malfoy burst into laughter. "Did you see his face, the great lump?"

The other Slytherins joined in.

"Shut up, Malfoy," snapped Parvati Patil.

"Ooh, sticking up for Longbottom?" said Pansy Parkinson, a hard-faced Slytherin girl. "Never thought you'd like fat little crybabies, Parvati."

"Exactly," interrupted Calysta. "That's why nobody likes you. We all remember how much you cried the first week of Hogwarts when you said you missed your mama."

"Mamaaaaa," wailed Regulus, mocking Pansy Parkinson by rubbing his fists in his eyes.

The Gryffindors howled with laughter.

"Wonder why Potterette would bother to rescue that useless lump," Malfoy laughed. "Does she fancy him? Personally, I find it rather amusing when a girl saves the boy instead..."

 "She can hear you," Calysta hissed. "And she will make you wish that you had a girl to save you too. Pansy Parkinson would be too happy to save you anyway."

"Buuuuurn," teased Regulus, spitting out what looked like his bitten off nail.

"Look!" said Malfoy, darting forward and snatching something out of the grass. "It's that stupid thing Longbottom's gran sent him."

The Remembrall glittered in the sun as he held it up.

"Give that here, Malfoy," said Harry quietly. Everyone stopped talking to watch.

Malfoy smiled nastily. 

"Give it here!" Harry yelled, but Malfoy had leapt onto his broomstick and taken off. 

He hadn't been lying, he could fly well. Hovering level with the topmost branches of an oak he called, "Come and get it, Potter! Let's see if you're as good as a flier as your sister..." 

Harry grabbed his broom.

"No!" shouted Hermione Granger. "Madam Hooch told us not to move— you'll get us all into trouble."

But Harry ignored her. He mounted his broom and kicked hard against the ground. Calysta let out a whoop of encouragement when he soared up above. 

"Give it here," Harry called, "or I'll knock you off that broom!"

"Oh, yeah?" said Malfoy, trying to sneer, but looking worried.

Harry knew, somehow, what to do. He leaned forward and grasped the broom tightly in both hands, and it shot toward Malfoy like a javelin. Malfoy only just got out of the way in time; Harry made a sharp about-face and held the broom steady. A few people below were clapping. 

"No Crabbe and Goyle up here to save your neck, Blondie!" Calysta laughed from the ground, lifting her hand up and shading her eyes from the sun.

The same thought occurred to Malfoy, and his face went paler, if that was even possible.

"Don't worry, Parkinson will catch you," she added, smirking.

Malfoy looked back up at Harry. "Catch it if you can then!" he shouted, and threw the glass ball high into the air and streaked back to the ground.

Harry saw, as though in slow motion, the ball rise up in the air and then start to fall. He leaned forward and pointed his broom handle down — next second he was gathering speed in a steep dive, racing the ball — wind whistled in his ears, mingled with the screams of people watching — he stretched out his hand — a foot from the ground he caught it, just in time to pull his broom straight, and he toppled gently onto the grass with the Remembrall clutched safely in his fist.

Calysta cheered and clapped for her twin, embracing him and ruffling his hair fondly, while the Slytherins booed and jeered at the pair.

But their happiness was short-lived.

"HARRY POTTER!"

Professor McGonagall was running towards them, her face red.

Draco Malfoy smirked. "Say goodbye to your twin, Potterette," he muttered from behind her, just loud enough for her to hear.

"Never— in all my time at Hogwarts—"

Professor McGonagall was almost speechless with shock, and her glasses flashed furiously, "How dare you — might have broken your neck —"

"It was Malfoy, Professor," Calysta said, almost instantly defending her twin.

"Silence, Miss Potter!"

"It wasn't his fault, Professor —"

"Be quiet, Miss Patil —"

"But Malfoy —"  

 "That's enough, Mr. Weasley. Potter, follow me, now."

Harry looked at Calysta, and a feeling of sorrow washed all over her at the prospect of her twin possibly leaving Hogwarts. He looked down, and as Professor McGonagall began to stride towards the castle, he forced his feet to follow her. Crabbe, Goyle and Malfoy held triumphant grins all over their faces, and Calysta longed to punch their grins away.

"Professor, wait!" Calysta called, before Harry and Professor McGonagall were out of earshot. 

McGonagall turned around. "What is it this time, Miss Potter?" she asked exasperatedly. "If it's about Malfoy I do not want to hear it."

"No," Calysta shook her head. "If you expel Harry, expel me too," she finally added, her eyes trained at the ground. 

Madam Hooch chose that moment to arrive. 

"Minerva," expressed Madam Hooch. "A word, if you don't mind."

"Of course," replied Professor McGonagall, "I'll deal with you later, Potter."

Madam Hooch was standing a few meters away from the First Years, and once Professor McGonagall joined her, they began discussing something out of earshot. Calysta would have tried to find a way to eavesdrop on their conversation, being naturally curious, but it was rather difficult with twenty five more students around her, and nothing but empty space.

Professor McGonagall returned back to Harry and Calysta, her mouth shaped into a flat line, refusing to give away her expression.

"Potter, follow me," Minerva remarked, turning around and advancing in the direction of the castle. "Both of you," she repeated, quickening her pace. 

Calysta's mouth went dry. Did Madam Hooch tell Professor McGonagall she'd disobeyed orders and flown without permission? Maybe that's what they were discussing. Calysta looked at Harry with a side glance, and sought to hold his hand. Her fingers were cold as his were clammy, and they had to walk briskly to keep up with Professor McGonagall, who still hadn't said a word to either of them, leading them to the front, up the marble staircase. She marched along the corridors, and wrenched open doors, and every step they took forward felt like miles and miles, only for them to stop at a door that looked very much like that to a classroom.

The professor opened the door and poked her head inside.

"Excuse me, Professor Flitwick," Calysta heard her say. "Can I borrow Wood for a moment?"

Wood? They weren't going to cane them, were they? The same thought occurred to Harry, and both twins looked at each other in fright.

But Wood turned out to be a burly fifth-year, who came out of Flitwick's class, looking rather bewildered.

"Follow me, you three," pronounced Professor McGonagall, and they patrolled through the corridors until she led them into an empty classroom, where Peeves was busy writing rude messages on the blackboard.

"Out, Peeves!" she barked. Peeves threw the chalk into the bin, which clanged loudly, and he swooped out, cursing. Professor McGonagall slammed the door behind her and turned to face the fifth-year and the two first-years. 

"Potters, this is Oliver Wood," introduced Professor McGonagall.

He's a fifth-year, Calysta noted. Does this mean our punishment is to do chores for him? She thought. 

In the girls' boarding school the Dursleys had enrolled her in, the younger girls waited on the older ones. Thankfully, she came to Hogwarts with Harry instead of going to that awful school.

"Wood, I've found you a Seeker," Professor McGonagall was saying.

A Seeker? Calysta's jaw dropped. Regulus and Felix had told her all about the game of Quidditch, and a smile made its way across her lips when Oliver Wood's expression changed from puzzlement to delight.

"Are you serious, Professor?" Oliver questioned.

"Absolutely," said Professor McGonagall crisply. "They boy's a natural. I've never seen anything like it. Was that your first time on a broomstick, Potter?"

Harry nodded silently, still addled about the whole ordeal. He didn't have a clue what was going on, Calysta presumed.

"He caught that thing in his hand after a fifty-foot dive," Professor McGonagall told Wood. "Didn't even scratch himself. Charlie Weasley couldn't have done it."

Wood was now looking as though all his dreams had come true at once.

"Ever seen a game of Quidditch, Potter?" he asked excitedly.

"Wood's captain of the Gryffindor team," Professor McGonagall explained.

"He's just the build for a Seeker, too," said Wood, now walking around Harry and staring at him. "Light — speedy — we'll have to get him a decent broom, Professor — a Nimbus Two Thousand or a Cleansweep Seven, I'd say."

"I shall speak to Professor Dumbledore and see if we can't bend the first-year rule. Heaven knows, we need a better team than last year. Flattened in that last match by Slytherin, I couldn't look Severus Snape in the face for weeks. . . ."

Calysta beamed with happiness at her twin's sudden fortunate luck. "Good job, Harry," she commented, her pearly white teeth flashed into a grin. 

Yes, she was surging with pleasure when Professor McGonagall told Harry he'd be the new Gryffindor seeker, but a saddened pang landed in her chest when she realized he'd be allowed a broom and she wouldn't. She had so looked forward to flying again. Oh well, she'd just borrow one of the school's brooms...

Her words to Harry seemed to remind Professor McGonagall and Oliver Wood that she was there too. 

Professor McGonagall looked down at the girl. "Madam Hooch also informed me that Miss Potter here saved Mr. Longbottom," she stated. "Apparently he was up seventy feet when he began falling, and she managed to catch him on her broom, and maintain stability for quite some time before she sunk from the weight.."

If Oliver Wood was capable of it, Calysta was sure he could have rivalled a teenage girl's emotional blowout.

"A first year?" echoed Oliver Wood. "I don't believe it!"

"I'm guessing that was also your first time flying," noted Professor McGonagall, causing the girl to nod and turn slightly pink in the cheeks. "She's better than Miss Bell."

"Are you sure?" asked Wood, raising a brow. "She looks quite... tiny."

Professor McGonagall let the edges of her lips curl upward slightly. "Precisely. That's why nobody would suspect her of being our secret weapon. We need a reserve chaser anyway, and Miss Bell wouldn't mind at all."

Calysta looked at the two having the conversation, without saying a word, quite confused. She didn't understand what exactly was going on; it was too much.

"Potter," Professor McGonagall turned to face Calysta. "Welcome to the team as Gryffindor's new chaser."

The brunette was frozen with shock. Excitement bubbled through her, and her lips stretched into a grin so wide it nearly reached her ears.

"She'd need a functional broom too," Wood pitched in. "Something stable, but light, that she would find easy to control."

"I'm on the team?" she gasped, her voice dry and parched. "And I get a broom too?" She couldn't believe her ears. This all sounded too fanciful to be true.

"Yes, Miss Potter," responded McGonagall, peering sternly at the Potter twins through her glasses. "I want to hear you're training hard, Potter, or I may change my mind about punishing you."

The two first-years nodded in synchronization. Then, the Professor suddenly smiled.

"Making the team in your first year is very much unheard of. Your father would have been proud of you two." she said. "He was an excellent Quidditch player himself." 

"What position did he play?" asked Calysta, suddenly finding her tongue. 

"Chaser."

It was strange, how that single word caused Calysta Lily Potter to feel like a queen.

{ here's the next update. i absolutely loved writing this chapter so much. again, i hope it wasn't too cliché. i'm still trying to build calysta's character, and she's a bit unstable, because she's trying to figure out who she is, while trying to balance out her friends, and her brother. she is independent, and she loves her brother, yet she doesn't want to fall into his shadow. she wants to shine on her own. let me know how you guys find it. love, jasmine. }