Wish Upon A Star

Norbert

Every time they passed the third-floor corridor, Harry, Ron, and Hermione would press their ears to the door to check that Fluffy was still growling inside. Ashlyn would just sigh.

 It seemed she kept sighing quite excessively. This used to annoy the trio at first, but then they got used to it. 

They had come to an agreement that Ashlyn wouldn't try to get them to support Snape and the trio wouldn't try to convince her that Quirrell was innocent. This didn't go very smoothly. Ashlyn considered the three as completely stupid and the other three considered her simply weird.

Whenever Harry passed Quirrell these days he gave him an encouraging sort of smile, and Ron had started telling people off for laughing at Quirrell's stutter while Ashlyn would give a thumbs up to everyone laughing at Quirrell. Harry had told her off and Ashlyn muttered something about Quirrell's stutter being fake. 

Hermione, however, had more on her mind than the Sorcerer's Stone. She had started drawing up study schedules and colour-coding all her notes. Harry and Ron wouldn't have minded, but she kept nagging them to do the same and it didn't help that Ashlyn was helping Hermione with her study plans.

"Hermione, the exams are ages away."

"Ten weeks," Hermione snapped. "That's not ages, that's like a second to Nicolas Flamel."

"But we're not six hundred years old," Ron reminded her. "Anyway, what are you studying for, you already know it all."

"What am I studying for? Are you crazy?" Hermione screeched. "You realize we need to pass these exams to get into the second year? They're very important, I should have started studying a month ago, I don't know what's gotten into me. . . ." 

The teachers piled so much homework on them that the Easter holidays weren't nearly as much fun as the Christmas ones, at least for the boys. Ashlyn and Hermione found it quite fun and satisfying to be buried in piles of books all on the most interesting topic -Magic. 

Ashlyn had told off Ron when he had made fun of her for reading book after book. Ashlyn told him to go study it a muggle school and see. All the magic stuff was much more interesting, to which Harry and Hermione had nodded vigorously and Ron had felt betrayed, all three ganging upon him. But he didn't make any comment on the girls having their eyes glued to the books.

It was all rather easy for Ashlyn. She had taken to practising ages ago, and she had given her hand at non-verbal magic too. She felt it would be better to start now itself so that it would become easier in the future, and almost habit. And if she kept practising wandless magic, that would become easier too.

"I'll never remember this," Ron burst out one afternoon, throwing down his quill and looking longingly out of the library window.  "Hagrid! What are you doing in the library?"

Harry looked up from his book, Hermione stopped crossing off the topics she had studied and Ashlyn poked her head out from an aisle of potion books.

Hagrid shuffled into view, hiding something behind his back. He looked very out of place in his moleskin overcoat.

"Jus' lookin'," he said, in a shifty voice that got their interest at once. "An' what're you lot up ter?" He looked suddenly suspicious. "Yer not still lookin' fee Nicolas Flamel, are yeh?"

"Oh, we found out who he is ages ago," said Ron impressively. "And we know what that dog's guarding, it's a Sorcerer's St —"

"Shhhh!" Hagrid looked around quickly to see if anyone was listening. "Don' go shoutin' about it, what's the matter with yeh?"