Lilliana Snape Book One (re-written)

Part 8

Before I knew it, I found that I’d been at Hogwarts for two months already and Halloween was upon us. I’d never celebrated Halloween before but, according to Fred and George, it was a huge thing at Hogwarts and we always had a feast to celebrate the occasion.

My stomach growled as I remembered the welcome feast, on our first night, and found my mouth watering as I wondered what was going to be on offer tonight. “Not long now” I muttered, pausing in the process of pulling on my socks to pat my stomach. My excitement doubled when Professor Flitwick announced in Charms that he thought we were ready to start making objects fly, something we had all been dying to try since we'd seen him make Neville's toad zoom around the classroom. Professor Flitwick put us into pairs to practice. Harry's partner was Seamus Finnigan, I was put with Neville but Ron, however, was to be working with Hermione. It was hard to tell whether Ron or Hermione was angrier about this. She hadn't spoken to either Harry or Ron since the day the broomstick had arrived.

"Now, don't forget that nice wrist movement we've been practicing!" squeaked Professor Flitwick, perched on top of his pile of books as usual. "Swish and flick, remember, swish and flick. And saying the magic words properly is very important, too -- never forget Wizard Baruffio, who said 's' instead of 'f' and found himself on the floor with a buffalo on his chest."

It wasn’t difficult, but then I never really found anything difficult, and the feather that was in front of me became airborne on my first try. I smiled happily to myself as I watched it float higher into the air before Flitwick noticed and said “well done, Miss Snape, well done! Of course I never really expected anything less from you! Ten points to Gryffindor!”

“Why don’t you have a go?” I suggested to Neville, sliding the feather over to him “it’s really not that hard.”

“It’s ok for you to say” he mumbled sadly “you’re clever, I’m just…” he sighed before taking up his wand and saying “Wingardium Leviosa” so pathetically that I wasn’t surprised that nothing happened.

“Go on” I smiled “try it-” but I was interrupted as Seamus and Harry’s father burst into flames. “Seamus” I snorted “how on earth did you manage to do that?”

He shrugged, grinning at me as Harry put the fire out using his hat “fire gets me, you know?”

Ron, at the next table, wasn't having much more luck. "Wingardium Leviosa!" he shouted, waving his long arms like a windmill.

"You're saying it wrong," I heard Hermione snap. "It's Wing-gar-dium Levi-o-sa, make the 'gar' nice and long."

"You do it, then, if you're so clever," Ron snarled.

Hermione rolled up the sleeves of her gown, flicked her wand, and said, "Wingardium Leviosa!" Their feather rose off the desk and hovered about four feet above their heads.

"Oh, well done!" cried Professor Flitwick, clapping. "Everyone see here, Miss Granger's done it! Well done" he smiled at her “you’re the second person to have achieved the desired result. Five points to Gryffindor!”

“Second!” Hermione cried “but who-” but fell silent when she looked at me. I winked at her, causing her to scowl. As much as I didn’t mind Hermione too much now, I still enjoyed teasing her; classes seemed to be a competition between the two of us at the moment and it was pretty close, except for potions, she was good at potion making because she was good at following the instructions but she was slow.