𝙡𝙤𝙫𝙚 𝙞𝙨 𝙜𝙤𝙡𝙙𝙚𝙣 - 𝙝.𝙥. ⚯͛

𝐱𝐯 - 𝖺𝗇 𝖺𝗅𝗆𝗈𝗌𝗍 𝗄𝗂𝗌𝗌

─── · 。ﾟ☆: *.☽ .* :☆ﾟ. ───

╰┈➤ HARRY'S POV

The long-awaited signs of Spring were on the way. As March came and went, the last of the snow on the castle grounds had melted, revealing small shoots of green grasses and the tiny buds of flowers blooming from the earth. Every morning Harry woke up to the melodic songs of the sparrows and the finches, and the sweet, perfumed scent of the gardenias seemed to be permanently hanging in the air.

Hedwig and Artie, Elsie's spotted owl, chased one another around the tops of the trees and searched for insects and mice from dusk to dawn. One more than one occasion, on the walk to Care for Magical Creatures, Harry thought he spotted the two owls cuddling with one another amidst the thick branches of a pine tree; it seemed that the delightful Spring weather had even the animals in a good mood.

Along with a change in the weather, Spring seemed to bring a change in attitude, especially for Hermione. She and Ron had finally made up, much to Harry and Elsie's delight, and their friend group was back to normal-- well, almost. About two weeks ago, Hermione had uncharacteristically punched Draco Malfoy in the face as well as dropped out of Divination. As she stalked out of Madam Trewlaney's classroom, slamming the door behind her, the class had broken out into whispers. Out of all of the third-year Gryffindors, Ron seemed the most impressed with her actions.

The four of them spent much of their Easter holiday working on assignments beneath the shade of a beech tree where Elsie had said the place provides "so much scope for the imagination" (A.N. if you know where this is from, I love you). Although Harry didn't like having to study over vacation, Elsie made the days enjoyable. She came up with fun games and mnemonic devices to help Harry and Ron remember vocabulary words and the components of potions for Snape's class; Hermione, most of the time, preferred to stick to her traditional way of studying in the library.

Many sunny afternoons were spent studying near the Black Lake, and for a while, all of Harry's worries about the dementors and Sirius Black disappeared. Harry couldn't help but compare Elsie to the mountain avens, a delicate white flower that decorated the Scottish hills, whose petals followed the movements of the sun across the sky throughout the day. Elsie was naturally a cheery person, but the days in the sun seemed to lift her spirits even more. She loved to walk barefoot through the grass and sit with her feet in the lake as she silently recited her mnemonic devices.

Right now Harry was sitting on a blanket in a sunny patch of grass with Ron and Neville, textbooks and piles of parchment spread out in front of them. Elsie was sitting a few feet away from them on top of a large rock near the edge of the Black Lake. Harry looked up from his notes and glanced at Elsie; he could see her lips moving as she recited something from her textbook, her legs swinging back and forth. Her short, wavy hair shimmered in the sun like golden ripples in a pool of water.

"Harry?"

Ron's voice snapped Harry out of his thoughts and he returned his gaze to his notes, hoping Ron hadn't noticed him staring at Elsie.

"Huh, what?" said Harry, trying to sound casual.

He looked up. Though Ron was glancing at his own sheet of parchment and hadn't seemed to notice Harry staring at Elsie, Neville had an eyebrow raised as he looked at him. Harry felt his face flush and pushed his glasses up his nose.

"Do you know what ingredients make up the Wiggenweld Potion?" said Ron.

"Er--" said Harry, flipping through his notes. "I just remember that there's a lot of ingredients--"

"It's all here on this page," said Neville, pointing a chubby finger to a paragraph on page one-hundred-and-seventy-three of the Potions textbook. "We need wiggentree bark, dittany, two drops of flobberworm mucus, one--"