Brave { Neville Longbottom}

Chapter Eighteen

Alana and Cardel were glad to hear that their daughter was settling in well at school and couldn't wait for all the stories she would tell them when she arrived home for Christmas break. Although, from her letters it sounded like she was having an amazing experience, but both parents were curious as to how much trouble Kefira had gotten herself into without them knowing.

At least they hadn't received any letters from the school regarding her behavior.

"Miss Walsh!"

Kefira came to a skidding halt in the hallway and turned her head to see Professor McGonagall walking towards her.

"Aww..what did I do now?" Kefira grumbled under her breath.

"Miss Walsh how many times  have I reminded you to not run up and down these halls?"

Kefira looked down to her hands and began counting while McGonagall watched her.

"Miss Walsh-"

"Hold on, I'm still counting..."

"Miss Walsh!"

Kefira threw up her hands. "Now you made me lose count."

McGonagall sighed. "Too many times was the answer Miss Walsh. I have reminded you one too many times. The next time I catch you running in the halls, I will give you detention."

"For running?!"

"For not listening!"

"But I was running for a good reason!" Kefira protested.

"Oh really and what reason is that?"

"I didn't want to be late for Charms but it looks like that's not going to happen. Couldn't you just let me continue running this one time? In the spirit of Halloween?"

"No, just because it's Halloween, you do not get special permission to break the rules. But in the spirit of Halloween, I'll give you a bit of sound advice, Miss Walsh..."

Kefira looked up at her. 

"Leave earlier."

"I wouldn't have to leave earlier if I was able to run." Kefira whispered under her breath as the professor turned away.

"What was that?" McGonagall turned around.

"Nothing!" Kefira said quickly, placing her hands behind her back. "I'm just going to walk myself to class."

McGonagall watched as Kefira walked passed her, with exaggerated leg movements, it almost looked like she was walking in slow motion.

"Every year." McGonagall said with a quick shake of her head.

Luckily, Professor Flitwick seemed rather forgiving of Kefira's tardiness, especially when she lied and said she got lost. 

She took the empty seat beside Neville and grinned at him.

"Did you really get lost?" Neville whispered to her, knowing Kefira wasn't one to get lost especially to Charms class, after they had been in school for nearly two months.

"Of course not." Kefira told him. "I got stopped in the hallway by McGonagall for running, so I was trying to be on time. Just didn't work out that way."

The lesson topic of the day was the levitation spell or otherwise known as  Wingardium Leviosa.

Kefira watched as Professor Flitwick demonstrated the charm using Trevor the toad. The toad floated around much to everyone's amusement.

"He looks like he's rather enjoying himself." Neville said.

"Toad-ally." Kefira replied.

Neville went to retort to her pun but Flitwick interrupted tell the students it was now their turn to try out the spell.

They would be practicing with a feather.

Performing spells seemed a lot easier in Kefira's head, then actually performing the spell itself. Her feather didn't even budge in the slightest.

She muttered several things under her breath in frustration.

"It's okay if you don't get it on the first try." Neville told her. "I bet you'll be the first to get it-"

However, before Neville could finish his sentence, Professor Flitwick drew everyone's attention to Hermione, who successfully cast her feather into the air, controlling it with her wand.

Kefira looked to Neville in amusement.

"Okay, maybe not the first but the second." he said encouragingly.

Kefira went to try again, but was interrupted by an explosion. She looked over to see Seamus covered in black, his feather gone, and his face full of shock.

"Professor I think we're going to need another feather." Harry called out to Flitwick.

Kefira wasn't the first to get her feather into the air, but she was certainly the first to laugh at Seamus.

"Shut it, Kefi!" Seamus said before he broke into a grin himself.

Eventually before the end of the class, Kefira had been able to get the feather off the table, even if it was just a small height.

After they left the class, Kefira and Neville walked side by side on their way back to the Common Room, when Kefira caught sight of Sir Nicholas, or rather as he didn't like to go by, Nearly Headless Nick.

"Hello Sir Nicholas!" Kefira called to the ghost with a wave.

"Hello Kefi!"

Neville was unsure of how Kefira befriended nearly every ghost that roamed the halls of the school.

"Hey Sir Nicholas, you should tell Neville your story!" Kefira said as she turned to Neville. "It's really wicked."

Sir Nicholas swooped down and placed himself in a window seat.

"You are one of the few people who ever found this story interesting." Nicholas chuckled.

He told Neville the story of how he had earned the nickname of Nearly Headless Nick. What started off as a good deed of trying to fix a woman's teeth, had resulted in him being executed with a dull blade. Dull enough, that it took forty five hits to finally kill him.

Neville sat there bewildered while Kefira looked entertained by Nicholas's story telling voice.

Finally, he left the two alone in the hall while Kefira turned her head to face Neville.

"Cool story, huh?"

"Cool yes...maybe...disturbing...very much." Neville swallowed rubbing his head.

"Well, I thought it was appropriate, it is after all Halloween." she said throwing her robe over her head and attempting to make haunting noises.

Unfortunately, for Kefira, she couldn't see where she was going, and while Neville tried to warn her, she either couldn't hear him or didn't really care.

That was until she bumped into someone.

She fell to the floor and looked up to see Draco Malfoy glaring down at her.