Chapter Four

The Gryffindors had just gotten done with their Monday classes and, before anyone could talk to her, Arya Stark sprinted out of the Herbology classroom. She ran up the stairs, out onto the castle grounds, passed the training grounds and the Whomping Willow--she had to jump to avoid a branch coming for her feet--then up a few more set of stairs. She stopped next to the doorway that leads up to the Hufflepuff house dorming area. She leaned against the brick wall next to the stairs, her arms crossed over her chest in an almost defensive position. She silently watched as groups of students passed her, chatting with each other as they walked by. She, awkwardly, messed with her red and gold tie for a minute, smoothing her hair down so it looked better. She was there for a few minutes before she saw Daenerys walking towards her, a tall, light-skinned Hufflepuff girl at her side. Arya, not expecting Dany to be with a friend, tried to duck down behind a torch to hide.

"Hey Arya! What're you doing over here?" Her attempt to hide was futile. Arya smiled, awkwardly, as she came out of her horrible hiding spot. "Hey, Dany. I was just, y'know. Hangin' out by this torch." Arya went to pat the torch, but stopped herself last second, grimacing as she realized she was about to touch the fire. Daenerys didn't seem to notice, but her friend smirked in amusement.

"Oh! Cool. Have I introduced you to Missandei, yet?" Dany asked Arya shook her head no. "Missandei, Arya. Arya, Missandei." Dany motioned toward each girl as she said their name. Missandei waved warmly at Arya, Arya gave her best smile back--but it came out more like a grimace. "We were just about to go up to our room and get some of our books and then go to the library if you want to come?"

Arya nodded her head, maybe a little too enthusiastic. She was just super excited to hang out with the other girl. Dany smiled a big smile that showed all of her teeth. They stared at each other a little longer than was probably appropriate before Missandei cleared her throat.

"Daenerys and I need to go get our books out of our room. You're a Gryffindor so you aren't supposed to come into our Common Room but could you wait out here for us?" Missandei asked Arya, politely. Arya nodded, watching as Dany and Missandei walked up the stairs to the Hufflepuff living area. Arya smiled to herself. Dany was becoming such a good friend, something she never really had before. Every time she was with the white-haired girl she felt her heart race and stomach do flips, which Arya took as a sign that she really wanted Dany as her friend. Arya waited, patiently, for the two girls to come back down from the Hufflepuff House living area. It didn't take long until Daenerys came bounding down the stairs, grabbing Arya's hand and pulling her towards the library. Missandei followed close behind. When the trio got to the library, Daenerys chose a table in the far back of the library for them to sit. Other students, mostly sixth and seventh years, were also in the library studying. Arya, who had no intention to study, sat down at the table first. Daenerys sat directly across from her and pulled out her Potions and Herbology books out of her bag, quickly getting to work. Missandei sat in the chair next to Daenerys and pulled out a roll of parchment with some quills, starting to write an essay for Potions. Arya, suddenly bored, started to practice some of her wrist movements for Charms. After about twenty minutes, Daenerys and Missandei were transfixed with their studying and Arya felt as though she had done enough for the night. She sat there quietly for a bit, watching the other two girls study. She soon got bored of that, though, and her gaze drifted over to the hundreds of books surrounding her. She, then, got a great idea. She was going to go find a book about dragons for her and Dany to study later when Missandei was gone. She slipped out of her seat without the other girls noticing and walked over to the bookshelves.

"Dragons, dragons, dragons," Arya muttered to herself as she thumbed through the shelves, "where art thou dragons." Suddenly, she ran into a body, causing her to fall to the ground. Angrily, she looked up at a tall, older girl with brunette hair cut in a bob-style fashion. She had on Gryffindor robes and a prefect badge pinned to her chest. The older girl raised her eyebrows in amusement. "Looking for something?"

"Actually," Arya stood up, dusting herself off, "yeah. A book on dragons." The older girl looked down at Arya carefully. "Why would you need a book on dragons?" Arya panicked for a split second, "Dragons are cool, duh." She cursed herself for sounding so stupid. The Prefect chuckled. "Well, Arya--"

"How do you know my name??" Arya interrupted, giving the older girl a suspicious look. "I'm your Prefect, remember?" The Prefect chuckled. "I introduced myself during the feast." Arya thought back to all the corned beef sandwiches she consumed during her first night at Hogwarts and her stomach started to growl a little. "I don't remember that," Arya stated, crossing her arms. "I thought you may not have," she smirked, "you were a little, preoccupied. I'm Yara Greyjoy, one of the Gryffindor prefects." Yara stuck out her hand for Arya to shake. The Stark child hesitantly reached out to shake her hand. "Anyway, about the dragon books, they mostly have those kinds of books in the restricted section so you probably won't be able to find much over here. They probably won't let you into the restricted area either, especially if you don't have any other reason to check out a dragon book other than that dragons are cool." Arya huffed, crossing her arms, annoyed. "Sorry, Arya," Yara put a hand on the younger girl's shoulder, "maybe another time." Arya wiggled out of her grip and went back to were Daenerys and Missandei were sitting.

"Hey, where'd you go?" Dany asked, looking up from her books when Arya sat down. "I was looking for a book, but they don't have it," Arya responded, still in a sour mood. Dany gave her a sympathetic look, which made Arya's chest flutter a little. Dany turned her attention back to the books spread out in front of her, Arya started to devise a plan in her head about how she was going to get those books. She decided that that night she'd sneak out of her room and sneak back into the library to get the books. Arya thought it'd be easy to do, especially because she had done things like it before at her house.

When it was time for dinner, the three girls went down to the Great Hall. Arya sat with the Hufflepuffs, again, like she had done for breakfast that morning. As soon as she sat down, she felt someone staring at her. She looked up and found Sansa sitting at the Ravenclaw table about twenty feet away, giving her a death glare. Arya gave her sister a big sarcastic smile, waving at her, animatedly. Sansa quickly averted her glare back down to her plate of food. "You two really don't like each other do you?" Dany whispered to Arya who sighed.

"She can be super annoying," Arya stated, "she is always telling me what to do because she thinks she better than me. I think it's fun to make her mad, she gets really red in the face and it matches her hair. Like right now, look." Dany turned her head towards the Ravenclaw table to look at Sansa who's face was indeed just as red as her hair. Daenerys felt a pang of sympathy for the other Stark girl who was stabbing pieces of meat with her fork. "Arya, maybe you should be a little nicer to her, she is your twin sister."

Arya scoffed, "I'll be nice to her when she gets her head out of her ass." Dany almost chocked on her food when the girl said "ass". Missandei's attention turned towards Dany and Arya. "Arya," Missandei hissed, "you have to watch your mouth! You could get in trouble!" Arya shrugged, "Ass, ass, ass, ass, ass, amph--" Dany's hand covered her mouth. Arya's hand shot up and wrapped around Dany's forearm but didn't pull her away. "Arya you can't do that!" Dany whispered into her ear. Arya nodded, Dany took her hand off of her mouth. Arya sat there flustered for the rest of the dinner.

After dinner, Missandei, Dany, and Arya parted ways. Arya ran up to Gryffindor Tower, "Balderdash." she exclaimed to the Fat Lady, who sighed at her and swung the door to the Gryffindor common room open. When she entered the room, she was extremely surprised to find Jon and Robb sitting on the couch by the fire. Jon turned his attention to her and a smile broke out on his face.

"Arya! Come sit with us!" Arya figured it wouldn't hurt to go sit with her brothers for a few minutes. She walked over to them and sat down on a love seat close to the fire. "How've you been, Arya?" Jon asked, "How're classes."

"Good and good." Arya stated Jon rolled his eyes. "C'mon give me more than that."

"I've been hanging out with Dany, we went to the library today." Robb's eyes lit up. "Arya Stark, you've been studying??"

Arya rolled her eyes and crossed her arms, "No, I just went to the library."

"Riiiiiiight." Jon chuckled. "So, Arya, I was thinking... since Quidditch tryouts are coming up, I was wondering if you'd like to help Robb and I train? You're one of the fastest flyers I've ever known and we'll need that for the tryouts." Arya nodded her head excitedly. "Of course! I love flying! Did mom pack our brooms??" Robb chuckled and nodded. "Wait, can I try out for the team, too??" Arya asked, excitedly. Jon and Robb looked at each other, "Arya... they barely let second years try out, I doubt they'd let you try out." Arya shrugged, "Too bad, I'm gonna do it anyway." Robb sighed, "Alright tell that to Loras. He's the captain of the team this year."

"When are tryouts, exactly?" Arya asked, buzzing with excitement over the possibility of being part of the team. Jon answered, "Tryouts are in two weeks." Arya smiled, "That's plenty of time!" Arya looked up at the clock on the wall, "If you'd excuse me, I have to start catching up on my sleep now." She gave them a sly look and leaped out of the chair, heading towards the stairs leading to the girl's dorm. "Oh no you don't," Jon grabbed Arya by her arm and pulled her back towards them. "I know that look, spill it."

"I don't know what you're talking about, it's time for me to go to bed!" Arya exclaimed, Robb raised his eyebrows, "It's seven o'clock. You're not going to bed, you're plotting something." Arya shook her head, "Lies! I just am tired. Now let me go!" She tried to rip her arm out of Jon's grip but she couldn't. "Arya, I'm not letting you go until you tell me where you're going." In a split second, Arya kicked Jon in his groin, causing him to yell out in pain and let go of her arm. She sprinted towards the girls' rooms, Robb hot on her trail. "ARYA!"

Arya was halfway up the stairs when Robb started to run up the stairs, causing them to turn into a giant slide--away for the castle to keep the boys out of the girls' dorms. Arya latched onto the railing and started to slowly pull herself up the slippery incline while Robb slid down to the bottom. Arya made it to the top of the staircase, turned around to make a face at Robb, then ran off to her bedroom. Robb cursed at himself, then went back to comfort Jon who was on the ground holding his junk. In her bedroom, Arya jumped into her bed slamming her face into the pillow. Two in the morning, that was when she was going to sneak out. It was only seven at night so she had hours to spare. For the majority of the five hours, she pretended as though she was asleep. Once it started to get closer to two, she began to get more and more impatient. At around one forty-five in the morning, she silently got out of bed. Making sure the other girls were asleep, Arya slipped out of the room. She crept down the stairs into the Common Room. She was startled to find Robb and Jon still down there on the same couch, but fortunately for her, they were passed out, snoring loudly. She quietly walked by them and out the door into the hallway. The corridors of Hogwarts were much creepier in the night, Arya noted. Everything that was in a constant state of motion during the day was sound asleep, even the stairs. She crept all the way down to the library without a problem however, as soon as she creaked opened the library door, she could see the shadow of Ser Jorah walking along the bookcases. She cursed to herself, but silently slipped into the library. Ser Jorah was holding a lamp and was obviously at the end of his nightly run. His posture was hunched, the wrinkles on his face much more pronounced due to his exhaustion. Once Arya saw him start down one aisle, she would go down another using the self-taught Lumos spell to make sure she wasn't about to bump into something. She could hear Ser Jorah's footsteps drawing closer to her. Muttering, "Nox." Arya slipped her wand into her pocket and leaned against the end of the bookshelf. She could see the light from Ser Jorah's lamp reflecting on the bookshelves in front of her as he walked past her and out of the library. As soon as the door to the library shut, Arya let out a breath she'd been holding in. She quickly lit up the end of her wand again, making her way to the restricted section. She quickly found the lengthy section on dragons. She didn't know which books would give her the best information so she grabbed the two thickest books, slipping back out of the library. She crept back up to the Gryffindor tower, making sure Ser Jorah was nowhere in her sight. "Balderdash," she whispered to the Fat Lady who gave her a death glare but let her inside the common room. Once inside the Gryffindor common room, Arya tried to quietly slip past her brother, again, but this time she wasn't so lucky. In her attempt at being as quiet as possible, Arya ran into a table, making a loud thump sound. Both boys shot up from their sleeping positions on the couch, Arya quickly ducked underneath the table she bumped very much out of sight to the two older boys.

"Robb," Jon sleepily rubbed his eyes, "we must've fallen asleep."

"Mmmhm." Robb hummed in agreement, tiredly.

"What time is it?" Jon's raspy voice rang out. "Quarter to four." Arya cursed herself for taking so long. The books in her arms started to feel more like forty-pound weights than books. "She must've been honest about wanting to sleep," Jon concluded. There was no voiced response from Robb but Arya assumed he nodded his head. "We should get to bed." Arya heard the boys' footsteps heading towards the stairs leading up to the boys' dorm. Once she believed she was in the clear, Arya crept out of her hiding place. She quietly walked over to the stairs to the girls' dorms when she heard an, "I KNEW IT!" loudly ring out across the common room.

Surprised, she turned around to find Jon and Robb standing halfway down the staircase they just went back up. Her eyes widened and she turned and sprinted up the stairs to her room as quick as she could. She barely was able to make it to the top when Jon and Robb reached the staircase, trying to run up to her but each time slipping down. Arya sat at the top, chuckling in amusement while watching her brothers fail. "Don't think we won't be talking about this, Arya!" Jon called to her, finally giving up. "Try me!" Arya called back, turning around to sneak back into her room. She was too pumped on adrenaline to sleep when she got back, so instead, she threw her blankets over her head and open the first book.