Artemis Hexley and the Mystery at Hogwarts

Chapter 4: Scared and Snared

Over the next few weeks, Artemis settled into her new life at Hogwarts, despite the hushed whispers and suspicious glances that followed her wherever she went. She and Rowan had become inseparable, and they made quite the team.

Rowan was slow, pensive, and methodical, excelling in all their theory classes and scoring top marks for her written work. Artemis, on the other hand, tended to jump straight in to whatever it was she was doing, and was much more adept at practical magic. Every time she picked up her wand, she felt as if she knew exactly what she was doing, and was always one of the first in the class to master every new spell they were taught, even if her writing was messy and essays not nearly as well-researched as Rowan's.

Her favourite subjects quickly became Charms and Transfiguration, which involved a lot of wandwork. Transfiguration was taught by the stern-looking deputy headmistress, Professor McGonagall, who intimidated most of the students, but never Artemis, who was in awe of her teacher's skill, and loved receiving McGonagall's thin-lipped smiles whenever she completed a successful transformation.

"I just don't understand why everyone is scared of her," Artemis said, after Rowan shied away from asking the Professor a question in class one day. "She's great."

"That's because you're the best in the class," Rowan told her.

"Not true, you got one hundred and five percent on your essay last week."

"You know what I mean," said Rowan. "Besides, you're not scared of anyone, even Professor Snape."

Artemis sighed. Professor Snape was easily her least favourite teacher - other than boring Professor Binns, the ghost who taught them History of Magic whenever he wasn't too busy falling asleep during his own classes - and she couldn't tell if he still hadn't forgiven her for the explosion in their first lesson, or whether he just disliked all students generally. The only person he seemed to actually like was Penny Haywood, who always scored top marks in Potions, and even managed to coax an occasional smile from the usually surly Potionsmaster.

Artemis and Rowan had been avoiding Penny and Dora Tonks ever since they saw them making fun of Artemis in front of the Gryffindors. Even though the four girls shared a room, it wasn't hard to keep out of each other's way, what with the number of clubs that Penny had joined, or the amount of time Dora seemed to spend in detention.

Dora Tonks' rebellious spirit, her inability to stay quiet during lessons, and her knack for knocking over fragile items got her into quite a lot of trouble. Most people now just called her by her surname, due to the fact that teachers were constantly bellowing it across classrooms. Artemis had to admit that although she and Tonks would never be friends, she was grateful that this kept Jane Court off her back. Penny Haywood, on the other hand, seemed desperate to be friends with Artemis and Rowan, constantly inviting them to various social events and club meetings. All of her invitations were declined.

"I don't know why she's pretending to be so nice," Rowan whispered, as Penny walked away to the other side of the common room, looking deflated after Artemis told her yet again that she really didn't want to join the Gobstones Club. "She's the one who was talking about you behind your back. Why does she think we'd want to join the Gobstones Club with her after that?"

Rowan, as it turned out, was a big Gobstones fan. Artemis suspected that if it weren't for Penny, Rowan would have joined the club. Instead, Artemis and Rowan played Gobstones just with each other, talking about their classes and their families. Rowan was incredibly sympathetic when Artemis told her all about how distant her mother was, how she barely remembered her dad and Muggle grandmother, how much she missed her Aunt Tina and Uncle Newt whenever they went away searching for creatures, and more than anything, how desperate she was to find Jacob and bring him back home.