A muggle-born Slytherin whose parents are terrified of her.
A pureblood Gryffindor whose parents are disappointed in him.
The arrival of her Hogwarts letter was meant to make everything better.
Asteria Halloway finally had an explanation for her p...
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Asteria sat in the barren quidditch stands, her legs crossed and a book propped up in her lap. On one side lay a huge stack of parchment with revision notes on, on the other side lay a blank piece of parchment with a quill lay upon it.
"There you are! I've been looking all over, and Severus was no help!" Lily exclaimed, bursting onto the scene loudly and dragging a large bag behind her.
Asteria looked up from her work as Lily plonked down beside her, causing a few sheets of parchment to flutter to the floor.
"Sorry, sorry." Lily gathered up the work and returned it to its previous position on the bench, "It's freezing out, why are you here?" "Sirius invited me." Asteria shrugged, wrapping her scarf around her neck more tightly and straightening out her gloves.
Lily hummed amusedly, stifling her smile as Asteria shot her a look.
"What?" Asteria asked. "Nothing... Just you've never shown interest in Gryffindor quidditch practice before." Lily grinned now. "Neither have you."
Lily closed her mouth but the smirk remained plastered on her lips. Asteria's interest in quidditch went as far as getting onto the Slytherin team, or spending evenings practicing alone on the pitch. Despite being such a good player, Asteria rarely actually watched the matches, let alone sat through practices, and let alone sat through practices of the opposing teams.
"When are they actually starting?" Lily asked, glancing down at the empty pitch. "Well he said practice would start an hour ago but they're yet to actually come out of the changing rooms."
Almost as if on cue - almost as in being an hour late - the Gryffindor team strode out onto the pitch, although it was more like strutting. Taking the lead was James Potter who held his head high as he led the way for the other players. Together, the team gathered around in a tightly knit circle in the centre of the pitch. Asteria finally looked up from her book to watch what was going on. The team mounted their brooms and kicked off in quick succession. Amidst the chaos of brooms and wind and players, Asteria's eyes landed on the one boy with wild black hair, hurtling through the air. Suddenly he came to a halt and turned to face Asteria, a familiar grin on his face.
"You're still here?" He shouted, flying towards her. "Sorry Black, was I meant to go?" Asteria raised an eyebrow. "Now, that's not what I meant."
James shouted loudly, drawing the players attention to himself so they could begin the organised practice. Without another word Sirius flashed Asteria a wink before zipping over to the rest of his team.
"Now he's really going to show off." Lily sighed, leaning back on her hands. "Can any of them actually show off anymore?" Asteria laughed lightly, watching Sirius summersault through the air. "You might think that... But if you're here I think Black might take it to a whole new level." Lily mused. "What exactly do you mean by that?"
Lily coughed slightly before returning her attention back to the players on the pitch. Asteria began reading her book again, tracing over her notes and scrawling down what she couldn't remember over and over in a desperate attempt to imbed it in her mind. It was almost like Potions had been made to be failed.
"Ria... Do you know that's wrong?" Lily pointed out, leaning over her work. "What?" Asteria's eyes widened as she looked down at the parchment that she'd copied out over and over and over again. "Like... Most of it is. The entire essay is based off that one point and that point is wrong." Lily admitted slightly awkwardly, "But it's okay, I can help you fix it."
Asteria ran a hand through her hair in exasperation, "How is it wrong? Sirius checked it over and corrected it." She sighed, grumbling as she sunk down in her seat, "Do you think he did it on purpose as some sort of joke?" Lily shook her head, "No... I don't think so... I genuinely think he might've been trying to help but when has he actually done any school work?"
"Can you just-can you fix it?" Asteria pleaded. If she stood any chance of proving that she could survive in the wizarding world, Asteria needed to show her parents that she could ace the upcoming exams.
The two girls sat side by side, shivering in the cold, attempting to correct the mistakes laced throughout Asteria's work. Before they knew it practice had drawn to an end at the quidditch pitch was empty once again.
"Ri-a!"
Asteria lifted her head to see a rather exasperated and sweaty Sirius Black stomping towards her.
"Hey, how did it go?" She asked, closing her work and putting it down on the bench beside her. "You might know if you'd watched." He stated bluntly.
She widened her eyes, instantly feeling guilty for choosing her work over watching everyone play. After all, she had been invited down to support and not revise.
"Oh, Sirius. I'm sorry, I'm really sorry I got distracted just Lily pointed out that the work we did was wrong." Asteria apologised. "Wait, what?" Sirius turned to Lily, "You did this?" He pointed his finger at her. "Did what?" Lily exclaimed. "Distracted-wait... The work I corrected is wrong?" Sirius frowned, turning back to Asteria again.
She nodded, smirking, "Yeah... Guess you're about as good at Potions as you are Astronomy." "Hey! I am brilliant at Astronomy!" Sirius complained. "You didn't even know what my name meant." "You can't hold that over me forever!" "I'm just saying." Asteria shrugged smugly.
"Maybe I do need to revise for these exams." Sirius mumbled, frowning at the ground.
"Lily!" A fresh faced and clean James ran towards them, contrasting heavily from the red-in-the-face Sirius whose hair blew about his face like a bird's nest.
"Potter." She replied shortly. "You came! Did you see me? Wasn't I great? Are you going to come to the matches now? If you want me and you can do private practices and-"
James yelped, being cut off as Lily stomped violently on his foot.
"I came to see Asteria, not any of you." She explained, "Try not to be so self centred and arrogant all the time."
James clutched his foot in his hand, "Anything for you Lily flower." He grinned. "Potter!" Lily exclaimed angrily.
"Okay, okay alright." He sighed, sitting down on the bench.
"Actually James, you could take Sirius with you because he kind of smells." Asteria scrunched up her nose as Lily agreed with her. "I do not smell!" Sirius exclaimed. "You are covered in sweat mate." James nodded.
