Harry Potter: The Aftershow

A day well spent with Sarabeth

     I woke up, and groggily rubbed my eyes with my fists clenched together. It was our day off from our classes. I must have slept in because nobody else was still sleeping in their beds. I slipped the covers off of my body and shivered when the cool air hit me. I quickly slipped into my clothes, and I snuggled into my robes, thankful for the warmth. I walked down the stairs to see people sitting around in the common room. Some studying or doing homework, and others just gossiping and hanging out. I greeted a few people with a big smile. I saw James sitting in front of the fireplace with a group of his friends. They were all laughing loudly. I quickly walked past them and kept my eyes in front of me. I went and climbed through the painting.

      Once I was out, the painting swung closed behind me and I smiled at the Fat Lady. " G'morning! How are you today?" I asked her. She replied, "I'm doing quite well thank you darling!" I waved goodbye and started making my way to the Great Hall, hoping that Beth would be there. And I was right. She was sitting alone at the Hufflepuff table, reading a book. But I could see her glancing over towards the Slytherin table every few seconds I sighed and walked over to her. I plopped down across from her. "You should at least not make it obvious Beth." I smiled at her. She rubbed her temples. "I know. I just wish I could stop thinking about him and everything." I nodded knowingly. "I get you, believe me, I do. But it would be so much easier if you just ignored him. That's what I'm doing with James and he hasn't tried to talk to me. It's actually making my life a lot less dramatic. What do you say? Could you give it a try?" She sat there for a moment in silence. She finally sighed and nodded. I smiled. "Now, what do you say we go find something fun to do?" She grinned at me.

     We walked around, out into the courtyard, around the castle, trying to find something to do. It was about 11:00 AM, when finally I fist bumped the air in victory. Beth raise her eyebrow at me. I laughed, "Sorry I just got the perfect idea! We could go and ask Professor McGonagall if she could help us work on some spells!" Beth nodded in agreement. And we sat off towards Professor's classroom. When we finally got there, we walked in see her sitting at her desk. When she finally noticed our presence, she smiled warmly. "Hello Aliria, Sarabeth. What can I help you with?" I stepped forward and asked, "Well Professor McGonagall, if your aren't busy, we were wondering if you could help us practice some spells?" She smiled and replied, "Well I haven't anything to do for most of the day so why not? What spells were you looking to practice?" I grinned. Beth said, "Maybe we could try the Blasting Curse, the Hover Charm, Incarcerous, and maybe Incendio?" I nodded, agreeing with Beth's choice of spells. "Yes, those are fairly easy ones. We will start off with those."

     So, for the next few hours, Professor McGonagall helped us perfect the spells. Starting with the Blasting Curse. She set up an area of dummies in an empty part of her classroom. We started taking turns trying out the spell. When we were using our wands the exact way that we were supposed to, and we were hitting the target, we moved on to the next spell. An easier one, the Hover Charm. We started practicing hovering small items at first. Then bigger things, then, one by one, we hovered each other. I went first, hovering Beth up in the air. I cast the spell, and slowly started lifting my wand, and where my wand pointed, Beth went. I focused hard, not loosing concentration. After a few minutes of making her float higher and higher, and farther away from me, it was Beth's turn. I knew that Beth wouldn't drop me, but at first, floating around the classroom, with nothing to catch me if I fell, made me nervous. But after a while, I was smiling, enjoying the thrill. It felt like I was just floating in time. "Good job both of you! You are both very quick learners! Now onto the next one, Incarcerous." Professor McGonagall said after Beth slowly lowered me back down to the ground. I laughed and high-fived Beth.

     To practice the spell first, we used dummies. They were life-like statue-like people. But they were made out of plastic. I would say, "Incarcerous", and the dummies arms would wrap up around the pole behind it, tying it tightly. After a while, we started practicing it on each other. It was a fairly simple spell so we perfected it pretty quickly. And the last spell was Incendio. We were very careful with this spell, seeing as it produced fire. We almost had a few accidents resulting in a big mess, but thankfully Professor McGonagall reacts quickly. When we were tired of practicing this spell, we decided to call it a day. My arm was aching from holding it up for so long. I sighed. "Thank you so much for helping us Professor!" Beth and I smiled gratefully at her. "Oh it was no problem at all! Perhaps you could both come back next Saturday as well?" Professor McGonagall said kindly. I nodded and said my goodbyes.

     When Beth and I were alone, I said, "Well that was fun! But I am exhausted. It's actually time to eat now! I'm going to eat something very quickly then I am going to sleep because I am about to collapse!" I said. Beth nodded and we made our way to the Great Hall. I made extra care not to eat too much sugar that would keep me up! When I was full, I said goodnight to some of the other Gryffindors and I went back to the Common Room. I trudged up the stairs and I plopped down on my bed, barely managing to slip my robes off and crawl under the covers.