4- persistent
Adhara loves flying, that’s one thing you should know about her.
So when they all gathered around on the field holding a broom she was filled with excitement to be back up in the air.
Their Flying professor mister Humphrey was a middle aged man who used to be a professional quidditch player until an injury forced him into retirement so he became a professor instead.
The students had to line up across from another placing their brooms next to them on the grass.
Adhara zoned out during his instructions, she already understood the basics, instead she looked a little up ahead at the school gates people were walking through to go outside and enjoy the warm weather. Amongst them she could recognise her brother with his friends.
He was looking her way probably trying to find her in the line of first years.
They were instructed to mount their brooms but to stay with both feet on the ground.
“I already hate this feeling” Pandora whispered from next to her. For
Adhara, mounting the broom was muscle memory.
As the professor was explaining how to push off the ground pandora started to slowly lift up from the ground. “Pandora” Adhara hissed, the frightened look she got back from her friend explained that Pandora wasn’t doing this on her own accord.
“Miss LeStrange, care to come back down, I haven’t given the signal yet”
Mr Humphrey Called out but Pandora only went higher and higher to the point where Adhara had to crane her neck to look at her friend.
The Professor started calling out to her but pandora didn’t seem to hear it looking absolutely mortified and clutching the brooms handle like a life line.
“She can’t hear you sir, she’s terrified” Adhara told her professor as concerned murmur of students filled the air, people demounting their brooms scared the same would happen to them.
Adhara stayed put and didn’t take her eyes off her friend, so as soon as Pandora’s broom shot into motion so did Adhara.
She flew in rapid speed after her friend who was screaming out in terror.
“Hold on pandora” Adhara yelled out as Pandora started to struggle keeping upright.
Pandora’s broom shot up in a vertical line going into the sky. Adhara followed and watched in horror at her friend hanging onto her broom by her hands.
Pandora looked down as they soared higher and higher and for the first time in her life, Adhara felt true fear for something that wasn’t her mother.
“I don’t want to die” she heard Pandora sob out as her hands started to slip.
Adhara watched it happen in slow motion as the first hand failed to hold on, the second one following close after, and pandora was falling from the sky above her.
Adhara wasn’t far behind her so she only had a very small gap of time to reach her hand out and wrap it around her falling friend’s wrist.
It was an almost impossible thing to do but she did it.
Holding onto her broom with one hand and tightened legs, she held pandora up by only her arm.
“I’ve got you ‘Dora I’ve got you”Adhara said as she hoisted her friend onto the back of her broom.
Pandora was sobbing loudly as she latched onto Adhara. Adhara has never been so grateful to feel arms wrapped around her.
She stayed hovered in the air to catch her breath.
She had almost lost her only real friend.
~*~
James was wandering the corridors with the unfinished marauders map in hand on the search for secrets spots and passage ways to add to it. He and his friends had started this project in their first year and still had a long way to go.
There were people out and about trying to soak up the last bits of sun before autumn took over and the sky got cloudy. James had been kicking a rock along with him down the corridor to keep him busy as he thought about the quidditch try-outs.
He has been back for two weeks and hadn’t talked with Adhara since their meeting in the train, of course he saw her at meals as she sat at the slytherin table shooting daggers at her brother and his friends, James included. He had tried to talk to her on that first day during lunch but she quickly shut him out.
he hadn’t tried to have a conversation since. He had thought about it, as he passed her in the corridor a few days ago, he wanted so badly to talk about the flying incident but he didn’t know if it was a touchy subject. he could’ve said a simple ‘hi’ but his voice got caught in his throat when his eyes met hers as she shot him a deadly look.
Adhara was nothing like her brother, they both handled their parent’s hard techniques in different ways, while sirius went against everything, Adhara seemed to comply.
“Of course it’s you disturbing my reading… again”
James looked up from the ground where the small rock laid in front of his shoe ready for it to be kicked about, he found Adhara sitting in one of the alcoves splitting the corridor from the courtyard. She had a closed book in her lap going against her statement of him disturbing her reading, and had her robes pooling around her covering her from the waist down.
“oh hi, what are you doing?” James asked as he walked over bending down a bit to see what Adhara was looking at in the courtyard.
“People watching” Adhara answered shortly.
“Ha ha funny, no seriously whatcha up to?”
The slytherin girl let out a sigh before pulling James down to sit across from her. “See that hufflepuff boy over there?” She asked and james nodded as he caught sight of a ginger haired boy looking around the grass.
“He thinks he’s lost his wand because he forgot he put it in his bag earlier, see those two girls giggling over there” James followed her gaze to another corner of the yard. “They just learned about amortentia in potions and it revealed a classmate has a crush on one of them”
“How do you know all of this?” James asked curiously, looking at Adhara now instead of the girls.
“People watching” Adhara shrugged, she had a small smirk playing on her lips.
“And why do you ‘people watch’?” James shuffled a bit in his place to make himself sit more comfortably as he asked the question.
“I like other people’s life’s more than my own, I’d rather sit and live through them vicariously, than endure what I’ve been saddled up with” her opening up took the both of them by surprise.
Adhara looked down at her lap avoiding James’s gaze which was full of sorrow. She let out a huff as she tucked her skirt further down trying to cover more of her legs. “Are you cold?” James asked as he noticed the action.
“No just don’t like skirts”
James nodded, not really knowing what to say to that. “How are you liking hogwarts?” He asked instead.
“Why do you care?” Adhara bit out, turning cold again.
“You’re my best friend’s little sister, of course I care” James shrugged and Adhara scoffed
“great, looks like I’m never going to be my own person”.
“What is that supposed to mean?” James asked straightening up.
“Forget it Potter” Adhara quickly got up and stuffed her book into her back swinging it over her shoulder “don’t talk to me again” she gritted before marching off.
“Bien Hecho potter, bien hecho” James muttered to himself as he got back up to resume his walk.
~*~
As the first weeks passed Adhara started feeling more and more at home at hogwarts, she was able to keep up with all the homework and even work ahead on some subjects, she had only received “outstanding’s” on potions and herbology and was top of the class in both lessons. She took pride in that.
She hung out around hogwarts with her new friends, often found in newly discovered spots either making homework or just launching around.
They found themselves sitting around the empty quidditch stands with a warming charm around them to fight the October cold as they watched the quidditch practice Gryffindors were having.
James and sirius had managed to both get a spot on the team and so while making her homework she often looked up to watch her brother flying across the pitch.
She knew he was good, growing up they always flew around the backyard. “Potter is proper fit isn’t he?” Cerci mused dreamily as she watched James clutching a quaffle and flying across the pitch to throw it through one of the goal posts.
“He’s a proper git, that’s what he is” Adhara scoffed.
“Now now Black, am I sensing some Jealousy?” Pandora mocked.
“No” Adhara muttered avoiding her friends’s gaze. “Why would I be jealous of someone like James potter?”
pandora shrugged leaning back on her arms “I don’t know, maybe because he has been spending more time with sirius than you have”
Adhara gaped at her.
“That’s mean” cerci commented.
“It’s just an observation sorry It wasn’t meant to sound mean, did that sound mean? I’m so sorry Dhara” pandora quickly apologised, her biggest fear was being mean to the ones she cared about.
“It’s okay, you’re right anyways” Adhara mumbled sadly, having it said out loud hurt more than she’d like to admit.
“Bloody hell, how aren’t you freezing?” Dorcas said as she walked over to them.
“Warming charm” Adhara muttered and watched Dorcas relax as soon as she stepped into the warmed space.
Her arrival quickly dismissed the previous conversation and Adhara was grateful for the distraction.
From the corner of her eye Adhara could see the Gryffindor seeker fly after the tiny golden snitch. Adhara ignored it until the snitch wizzed right past her and her reflexes got the better of her. she snatched the snitch from the air without even directly looking at it.
The conversation her friends were having fell silent as they stared at their friend. Marlene Mckinnon the new Gryffindor seeker was hovering mid air in front of Adhara also staring at her in shock.
“merlin Black you better try out for seeker next year” James came flying over smirking at her, Sirius in tow. “told you she would make an amazing seeker one day” her brother smiled at her as she quickly shot out of her trance standing up and holding the snitch out to Marlene who took it from her without another word.
Marlene and Sirius quickly flew off while James was left hovering in front of Adhara who was standing at the edge of the stands. “what do you want potter?” she asked crossing her arms annoyance clear in her voice.
“to hang out with you some time, get to know you perhaps?” he looked way too smug for Adhara’s liking.
“hard pass” she told him swiftly turning around and climbing back up the stairs to her friends.
“did you seriously just decline a date with James potter?” Dorcas asked amused and Adhara just shrugged turning back to her homework.
~*~
Adhara knew there wasn’t anything wrong with the school uniform, she knew there was something wrong with her. Her friends seem to be fully content wearing the uniform, whereas Adhara really didn’t feel comfortable at all, she felt the same as she did whenever her mother would dress her overly feminine to seem appealing to guests, like a respectable lady, but really it was like a prize, the trophy of the Black family.
She stared at herself in the bathroom mirror. Her button up hanging over her skirt instead of being tucked in, it helped a bit but she still didn’t feel like herself. With a deep sigh she undressed and put on some other clothes that weren’t the school uniform.
Pulling on a pair of jeans and a sweater she felt a lot more at ease. She didn’t get what was wrong and didn’t want to think about it any longer. She exited the bathroom and joined her friends to play some board game in the dorm.
~*~
Adhara didn’t have to look up to know who’s shadow was casting over her. She was sat against the trunk of a tree writing her potions essay on sleeping draught.
“buenos dias!” James greeted happily.
“bonjour” Adhara said back mockingly, finally looking up to see james smile brightly before he went to sit beside her.
“so it’s Halloween tomorrow” James started.
“I’m aware” Adhara replied, still looking at him, he had a boyish grin on his face, the James Potter grin she tolerated.
“did you know muggles have this tradition of dressing up for Halloween?”
“dress up? You mean in suits and dresses and robes?” she asked confused.
“no they wear scary costumes or dress up as characters or celebrities, it sounds like a lot of fun” James explained staring off in the distance.
“me and the others were thinking of celebrating it that way next year, try to get others involved” he shrugged and Adhara was questioning why James was telling her this, did he just have to get it off his chest or was he that desperate for conversation topics.
“wait isn’t Halloween also a tradition in Mexico? What was It again?” Adhara fell silent trying to think of the name, James opened his mouth to talk but she quickly clamped her hand over his mouth wanting to come up with the answer herself. James stared at her before he licked her palm making her retrieve her hand immediately with a grimace “gross potter” she muttered as she stared at her hand, James chuckling.
She reached over and wiped her hand on his sleeve, halfway through the action she froze, her hand stilling on his arm, realising this was the first time in the two months that they knew each other that she touched him.
She pulled back her hand and cleared her throath “dias de los Muertos” she muttered.
“bingo” James smiled.
“do you still celebrate while at Hogwarts?” Adhara asked him genuinely interested this time.
“I try to, but I can’t really do much, probably just gonna light a candle for my ancestors like I did last year, I didn’t want my friends to judge me so I kept it small”
“Sirius wouldn’t judge you for it, I bet he would be interested in it”
“you think so?”
Adhara nodded “know so”
The two fell into a comfortable silence, sitting against the tree with a warming charm around them, not many people were outside in this weather, Adhara wondered how James had found her and why he had joined her.
~*~
“whatcha doing?”
Adhara let out a groan and dropped her head onto the library desk as James took a seat next to her, James had started to find her at random times to join her. It annoyed her but she was slowly getting used to the potter boy popping up out of nowhere, invading her personal space.
She loves her personal space, James also seemed to love her personal space.
“history” Adhara muttered her reply, her face smushed into her parchment “I fucking hate history of magic” she sat back up.
“wow what a language” James chuckled sliding her work closer to himself to examine it.
“oh I had an outstanding on this essay, once you understand the motifs of both parties involved its really easy to grasp the context” Adhara stared at him in disbelieve and James laughed again. “want me to help?” he offered, Adhara really didn’t want to accept, but she could really use the help.
And so James helped her write her essay and understand the material better.
“how did you do that?” Crouch asked in disbelief staring at the ‘outstanding’ written on the corner of Adhara’s paper. Barty himself had an ‘acceptable’ on his essay.
“guess some are just smarter than others” she had too much pride to admit that someone helped her, let alone admitting that that someone was James potter.
“you’re annoying you know that?” Barty grumbled as he sank further into his seat.
“I’m well aware, besides you’re the one that keeps sitting next to me”
“we have assigned seats yah idiot” and oh, yeah, right.
Adhara and Barty always seemed to bicker but they had to admit they were able to work really well together. She would consider Barty a friend, he was nice and understood her needs to not talk at times.
Barty had this coolness to him, something Adhara strangely envied, her friends thought she wanted to be with him, adhara knew better, she didn’t want to be with him, she wanted to be like him. She also knew that would be impossible she was a girl after all, but she wished she had the same aura as Barty crouch did.