“Hurry up there, you’ll miss
breakfast!” Professor McGonagall’s
crisp Scottish accent rang out in the corridors, speeding up a gaggle of
dawdling first years. “Ah, Amelia. Sleep well?”

Amelia
had indeed slept well, a hitherto unaccustomed feat in a new home; she had
risen early and spent a good hour establishing routes to and from the
classrooms marked on her timetable and her allotted rooms, along with several
other key locations within the castle. She had just emerged from a portrait of
an irritable looking witch who appeared to have lost her cat.

“Indeed. That’s one hell of a
secret passage – I was outside Herbology.”

Minerva couldn’t
help but smile. She had taken a liking to the newest addition to the faculty,
for all her unusual talents.

“Was Pomona
there?” Amelia barely had time to register the
flash of amusement on her friend’s face before it was concealed behind a
tight-lipped smile.

“Potions is that way,
Bottomley – in the Dungeons, not the Astronomy
Tower.”

A terrified second-year scurried
back in the direction from which he’d come.

“She was, as a matter of fact,”
replied Amelia, expression carefully blank. “She
looked a little… delicate”.

Minerva made a
noise that could have been a snort of laughter but which would have been
interpreted by any of the passing students as a perfunctory cough.

“She doesn’t drink particularly
often, but when she does…” she waved her hand in a dismissive manner. “Shall we
join the masses for breakfast?”

As they made their way across the
Great Hall Amelia spied her cousin bickering with her two best friends and gave
her a quick wink.

“You’re close to your cousin,
aren’t you?” asked Minerva over a bowl of muesli. “Pass the
fruit? Oh, thank you Filius.”

Amelia
nodded, “We always were, both bookish and quiet,” …and lonely, she added
privately. She buttered some toast.

“And now?”

“She’s all I have left,” Amelia
said, watching as the Weasley twins did their best to entertain her cousin.

“I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to –”

It was Amelia’s
turn to wave away a comment. “It’s fine, really.”

Embarrassed, Minerva
turned to Filius and Amelia was left to her
toast. A few minutes passed in contemplative crunchiness before a new voice
jolted her out of her thoughts.

“Pass the eggs?” It was her
friend from the train.

“Sorry, I was miles off,” she
said, passing the plate across.

“I could see.” There was that
sparkle of joviality again, behind his weariness. They spent a few minutes in
companionable silence before Remus was presented his timetable by Professor
Vector.

“Hmm. Double fifth years, I suspect
they’ll be less than co-operative,” he said, examining the parchment. Amelia
chuckled.

“What?”

“You’ve got the Weasley twins,”
she indicated along the Gryffindor table to where Fred
and George were once again impersonating Percy,
making little Ginny turn crimson and attempt to disappear behind her timetable.

“Ah,” he said, following her line
of sight.

“I’ve got third years. I suppose
the fourth floor is fairly easy to get to?” She’d found it once during her
exploration that morning, but half of the stairs had vanished as she’d tried to
get back down and she’d been forced to leap from one staircase to the next as
it swung past at a leisurely pace.

“Relatively,” replied Remus. He
wondered vaguely whether the staircase in that part of the castle still tried
to corral unsuspecting passengers. “My first class is up there too, I’ll walk
with you if you want.”

“That’d be great – if you don’t
mind!”

“Not a problem,” he smiled.

They finished their breakfast and
set off together, passing an exceptionally delicate Madame
Pomfrey as they left the Great Hall.

“I never took Muggle Studies,
what are you teaching the third years?” he asked as the started up the stairs.

“Attitudes to science and magic,
this term. Although I suspect I’ll prefer first and fifth years.”

“Why?”

“Cultural awareness –
experiencing the world through cinema and music.”

Remus paused on the third floor
staircase to allow the Fat Friar’s ghost to glide past.

“Won’t you have some difficulty
with electricity and magic? They tend not to interact happily…”

“I’d heard,” she replied,
smiling. Dumbledore had told her, during her interview, that he’d once tried to
make a toaster run on magic, with some spectacular results.

“They tend to explode…” continued
Remus, apparently concerned for his new friend’s limbs; he was looking at her
worriedly.

“I’m using clockwork,” she said,
only just managing to avoid rolling her eyes at him. “Don’t worry, Dumbledore
said that there wouldn’t be a problem. I’m a big girl; I can take care of
myself.”

They came to a halt outside an
empty classroom. He looked at her a little oddly.

“I’ve no doubt,” he said. “Well,
this is you…”

“Thanks again.”

“Not at all.”

Amelia
went into the room and got out the course materials; by the time she’d turned
back around the werewolf had gone.

0o0o0o0

She spent an enjoyable morning
discussing various philosophies of science and magic with Hermione and her
classmates, before setting them two rolls of parchment on the evolution of the
modern Wicca religion. Once the moans about the amount of homework had died
away down the corridor, she took the opportunity to catch up with her cousin.

“Good first lesson Mel!”
she said, causing Amelia to beam.

“I hoped so, but it’s nice to
know. It’s a bit weird being this side of the desk… I’m glad it was with you.”

Hermione beamed back. “Everyone
seemed to really get into it, particularly Ernie
Macmillan – he’s usually quite quiet.”

Amelia
nodded, “I’ll keep my eye on him. What’ve you got next?”

“Divination – do you know about
my… arrangements?” she asked, quietly.

“Dumbledore informed the staff
last night.”

“Oh, thank God… I don’t think I’d
have been able not to tell you,” she grinned. “Best be off then.” So saying,
she removed a golden chain from about her neck, span the delicate pendant and
grinning, disappeared from sight.

Amelia
shook her head; she’d never get used to this place.

0o0o0o0

After getting the first years off
to an appreciable start on the finer points of fantasy writing, Amelia
went to secure some lunch in the Great Hall. She was delighted to discover that
school dinners were much better in the wizarding world than they had been at
her secondary school and was helping herself to a hearty chicken salad when she
felt a familiar but unpleasant sensation twitch its way into her subconscious.
She glanced up at the Gryffindor table just in time to see Hermione storming
away from a puzzled looking Ron and Harry.

“I shouldn’t worry too much,”
said Minerva, who was once again seated beside her. “Sybill
told them that Harry was going to die this
morning.”

Amelia’s
head snapped around in shock.

“Oh, she predicts the same thing
every year, possibly in the hope that she’ll be right at least once. Your
cousin appears to have decided that it is complete bunkum,” Minerva
looked faintly proud of her student. She continued more darkly, “Although I
think Mr Weasley
is less convinced.”

0o0o0o0

She spent much of the first half
of the next lesson attempting to prevent Fred and George from ‘accidentally’
setting anything on fire, but once she’d got the rather creaky clockwork
wireless in the corner to work they had calmed down considerably. By the time
she had covered their long-term project – researching Muggle life through
popular music – they were sat with their classmates at their desks, attentively
scribbling down assignment parameters, trying to get ahead on their homework.

Consulting her timetable,
however, she was more than relieved to discover that she had the rest of the
afternoon off. She looked out at the sky: sunshine had broken through the
clouds now, and was bathing the grounds in a welcoming light. Amelia
decided that she’d earned a damn’ good explore, exchanging her good shoes for
more robust specimens and leaving her smart robes behind.

There was a light breeze
accompanying the sunshine and as she wandered the shore of the Lake,
watching the tentacles of the Giant Squid ripple under the surface, she thought
that this place could indeed become a very beautiful home. She rather lost
track of time as she bimbled, and so it wasn’t until dinner that she heard of
the rather dramatic events playing out elsewhere in the grounds that afternoon.

0o0o0o0

In the dash between lectures that
afternoon, Remus waited by a window that faced out onto the Lake
while a rowdy bunch of sixth years ambled passed. He glimpsed a lonely looking
figure striding off around the shore and, as the wind brushed her hair back
from her pink cheeks, he caught his breath.

Curiouser and curiouser…
he thought, as she rounded a curve and headed into the trees of the Forbidden
Forest. Vaguely, he wondered
whether anyone had given her the usual dire warnings about the woods… and then
whether, if they had, she’d pay any attention. Probably not, he decided
as he continued to his classroom. He was intercepted at the door by a grave and
out of breath Filius Flitwick,
who told him that there had been some kind of accident in Hagrid’s class and
that there would be a staff meeting after dinner.

“Who was hurt?” he asked,
concerned. “Are they –”

“Draco
Malfoy,” the smaller man replied. “He’ll
live, though he’s milking it for all he’s worth.”

Remus nodded before continuing
into his already full class: “So, what do we know about vampires?”

0o0o0o0

The meeting was a sombre one,
Remus having filled Amelia in during the meal.

Dumbledore assured everyone that
Malfoy would be fine, and Severus that ‘the beast’ was secure.

Hagrid was in an awful state; he
kept muttering to himself: “I tole him not ter insult him, I tole him…”

The school governors were
informed of the incident during the meeting, apparently by the portraits of
previous headmasters that lined the walls.

Snape left first, with something
of a sneer, closely followed by Madame Pomfrey,
who needed to tend to Malfoy and was kindly leading Hagrid to her office for a
restorative.

As she made her way back to her
quarters Amelia reflected on the uncanny ability
of teenagers to get themselves in trouble by knowing better than everybody
else. Lost in her reverie, she continued along the corridor until the abrupt
appearance of the Bloody Baron eventually startled her out of her thoughts. She
realised that not only had she been walking for some time, but also that she
had no idea where she was; this part of the castle was entirely unfamiliar to
her.

She doubled back on herself until
she came to a junction where several passageways joined together. Thinking back
to earlier in the evening she was somewhat alarmed to discover that she had no
recollection of her journey; she was quite lost. Reluctantly, she turned back
to discover where her feet had been taking her.

At the end of the corridor was a
door leading to an ascending staircase; deciding that an upper window might
provide a better clue to her location than her current position, she started up
it.

The stairs came out into an
extraordinary room: above her, Amelia could see
an exquisite and curved model of the solar system, the bronze planets
gracefully orbiting their tiny, gold sun. The model continued into an upper
room, one or other of the planets disappearing into the upper room with a soft
whoosh before arcing gently down again on the other side of the room. The
shelves on the lower level were piled high with books and curious metal
objects; her eyes rested briefly upon a brass telescope.

Ah, she thought, the AstronomyTower.

She went, then, into a second
room, more full of equipment than the first, and took the spiral staircase to
the upper level, the metal cool under her hand.

Amelia
was instantly glad that her feet had taken it upon themselves to show her this
place. The pale light of the waning moon cast an ethereal glow across the brass
and gold apparatus in the room. Amelia crossed to the rail set into the wall
and looked out across the lake, her eyes following the shape of the woodland up
to the mountains; they didn’t seem too far off from up here, perhaps when it
was warmer she and Hermione could investigate them.

So enchanting was the view, and
so peaceful the night, that Amelia was still stood there a good twenty minutes
later, when a bemused Remus Lupin came upon her, having sought peace following
the meeting and remembered the excellence of the view from the Tower in his
youth.

Doing his best not to startle his
new friend, but not quite succeeding, he cleared his throat. Amelia
nearly jumped out of her skin. The subsequent few minutes were therefore filled
with repeated apologies and laughter before the two of them settled against the
rail once more to drink in the view, and they lapsed into a comfortable silence.

The moonlight glittered off the
lake below and Amelia thought sadly that if her
mother were alive she’d have loved this view. Remus too was recalling those
he’d once called family, romping about the castle by night, enjoying midnight
feasts courtesy of the house elves, frolicking about the grounds, never quite
staying out of trouble. He sighed as he thought of that last autumn and the
threat that had hung over them all. Amelia had
been watching a flock of bats circling the trees below and flowing past their
lofty perch, so she missed his premise.

“Hmm? Sorry…” she apologised,
looking sheepish.

“I said it’s hard to believe a
place this beautiful could be so dangerous.”

“You mean Malfoy? Yes, I suppose
that even if he hadn’t provoked that Hippogriff it wasn’t a great way to start
the year… he’s a nasty piece of work though, from what I’ve seen.”

Remus nodded: “Even if he had
paid attention, the Wizarding World is a place fraught with painful accidents.”

“Now you tell me!” Amelia
laughed, and he smiled back at her.

“Take Quidditch, for example –
I’ve never known so many injuries be attributed to one sport.”

“Ha! There speaks a man who has
never played rugby,” she chuckled. “Though you may have a point. Hermione’s
been here for only two years. Last year she spent the majority of her time
petrified – as in turned to stone, not afraid. First year her friend Ron
was nearly killed by an enormous moving chess piece… seems like every other
week the Prophet reports a splicing, whatever that is.”

Remus grimaced. “You make our
world sound so violent.”

Amelia
checked herself, realising that she might have offended him and continued
carefully. “Though having said that, the Muggle world isn’t much better. It
tends to oscillate between terror scares and pandemics, so it’s more or less
the same.” She gave a hollow laugh, “and you should hear the stories I could
tell about the city I took my degree in… Still, magic does seem to be rather
more explosive than I was imagining.”

Lupin had to agree.

“There was a girl here when I was
a student, name of Ione, very nice girl – a Ravenclaw – bit quiet. Things blew
up around her with alarming frequency.”

“I hear that Seamus
Finnegan hasn’t spent a week here entirely
in the possession of his own eyebrows.”

They grinned at one another,
earlier discomfort dismissed.

“I’m serious though,” he
continued, “it’s even in the grounds. Everything seems so peaceful and yet…

“You see that tree down there,
just across from Hagrid’s? That’s the Whomping Willow; it was planted in my
first year, tends to wallop anything that gets too near it. Then there’s the
main doors, of course: beautifully carved, the peak of fashion when they were
made I’d imagine… but then you look a bit closer and see the bolts from top to
bottom. Those doors aren’t there for aesthetics any more than the metre-thick
walls.”

“You really take your subject
seriously, don’t you,” Amelia observed, looking
the man beside her up and down.

“With good reason,” he said,
wearily. “I remember a time when those doors were put to good use.” He looked
at her eyes, narrowing at him in the moonlight. “But that’s quite enough doom
and gloom for one evening, I think.”

Amelia
was inclined to agree; looking out at the grounds once more she noticed that
the soft glow of the moon was retreating behind the clouds. Suddenly the
pleasantly cool breeze she had hitherto been enjoying made her shiver and pull
her robes close around her.

Remus must have noticed as he
turned the conversation to lighter things, describing the nearby village
of Hogsmeade and giving some of the
history of Hogwarts, embellished, she suspected, by memories of his school
days.

It was very late indeed when they
finally decided to turn in, Lupin helping Amelia
find her was back into familiar territory (“Bloody staircases! Got a mind of
their own most of the time!”).

There was a note under her door
from Dumbledore when she returned, detailing in full the Ministry regulations
for safety in the classroom, probably in response to the earlier incident. Amelia
stood for a while and tried to imagine anything that might make Dumbledore use
the castle’s defences, before deciding that it was probably better not to dwell
on such things.