Beyond the Shadows | A Hogwarts Legacy Story

Chapter Three

The following morning came all too soon for Aurora as the sun rose, filtering in through the golden curtains of the Hufflepuff dormitory. She stretched, her legs straining against the blankets as she rubbed her eyes. "Pop," she called out groggily. "Poppy, it's time to get up." Despite everything in her telling her to lie back down and curl up, Aurora sat up, swinging her slender legs off the bed, her toes dangling just above the wooden floor. "Poppy," she said again, nudging her friend's bed with her foot.

Poppy mumbled, "Five more minutes," into her pillow. Aurora smiled as she grabbed the brush from her bedside table and began to comb through her hair. It caught on a particularly stubborn knot in her chestnut hair. She pulled at the brush, somehow managing to tangle her hair even more. Aurora huffed, setting the brush down, and pulled her hair back into a large bun at the nape of her neck. She continued getting ready before finally attempting to wake Poppy again.

"I gave you an extra ten minutes, Pop. Rise and shine."

"I'm up," she said, sounding much happier as she lifted her head from the pillow. Aurora fought back a laugh as she took in the sight of her pretty best friend with the wildest case of bedhead she'd ever seen.

"I'll be downstairs packing my bag. Meet you down there?" Aurora asked, gathering her things from her trunk, which sat at the foot of her bed.

"I'll be down in a jiffy!"

Aurora managed to make it down to the common room without dropping a single quill or book. She scattered her items on a table, trying to decide what to take. She wasn't sure what her timetable would look like until breakfast, so she began stuffing all her books into her bag. It didn't take long before she realized it was an impossible task. With N.E.W.T. level classes came larger textbooks that her bag was not suited to carry all at once.

"We could come back down after breakfast and grab what we need, you know," Poppy said from behind her, Adelaide now at her side. "I don't want you breaking your back on the first day of classes."

"I think you've forgotten how many steps this place has. I'm not too keen on taking them twice, but I suppose it's not the end of the world," Aurora remarked with a smile, dropping her bag onto the table and joining her friends. They exited the common room and headed up the spiral staircase.

"I actually think it's impossible to know the number of steps. I swear this place is always changing," Poppy said matter-of-factly.

The girls continued through the castle, finally reaching the Great Hall doors. Aurora chuckled as she heard Poppy and Adelaide's labored breathing over her own. "Just think, we have to do that again in the very near future," she reminded them with a smirk on her face. They burst into a fit of laughter, entering the Great Hall to the delicious smell of eggs, toast, sausage and bacon, and pumpkin pasties.

Aurora snagged a pumpkin pasty right away, shoveling it into her mouth as she awaited her timetable. It looked as though Professor Garlick was passing them around to the Hufflepuffs a few students down from where Aurora, Poppy, and Addy had sat. The girls had barely finished their meal when Garlick approached them with a kind smile.

"Hello, Miss Clarke, Miss Sweeting, Miss Oakes. I have your timetables here..." She rifled through the stack, handing each of them their own. "Miss Clarke, it looks like you're interested in continuing with Transfiguration, Defense Against the Dark Arts, Charms, Potions - I'm sad to see you've chosen to drop Herbology," she added. "It looks like you still need one more class for a total of five."

"Oh, I suppose I didn't realize -"

"Do you know what you'd like to do after school?" Garlick asked.

"I haven't given it much thought, but I may be interested in being an Auror... or maybe a professor."