Hidden Wings - Part I

Time flies...

Trying to hide her disappointment, Mioha tried hard to not let herself become discouraged.
She had to keep going, she kept telling herself. Harry needed her help and she wouldn't figure out her problem with her magic by laying in bed sulking.
And there was the unicorn disease as well as her memory issue.

Sometimes Mioha felt like there weren't enough hours in the day.

June passed more quickly than she had thought. Harry continued practicing and he had a strange dream during Divination, which caused him to fall off his chair. In his dream, Wormtail was being tortured by Voldemort, which only added to her load of questions.

At the end of June, when they should have been studying for their exams, Mioha approached Harry, Hermione and Ron during one of their practice sessions in an empty classroom.

"Guys", she said slowly, shooting Hermione a nervous look. "Can I talk to you for a minute?"

Harry had just stunned Ron, the latter flying backwards and landing on his bottom, missing the pile of pillows Hermione had arranged a meter to his left.

"Ouch!", Ron exclaimed, rubbing his aching back as he stood up. "You couldn't have made me land over there, mate?"

"Sorry", Harry muttered before turning to Mioha. "What's wrong?"

Mioha knotted her hands anxiously, noting how Hermione looked at her encouragingly.
"Uhm, well", she stammered.
"You see, I- I, well....., ok, uhm... you can't tell anyone about this, alright? I don't want everyone to know but you guys are my best friends so.... uhm....I can't use a wand, as you know. But I'm not totally useless, I mean, I can do magic, it's just-", she took a deep breath. "I can only do wandless magic."

There. Now she had told them.
Hermione beamed at her proudly, but Mioha's eyes were fixed on the two Gryffindors before her.

Harry looked very much like a fish, his mouth forming a perfect 'o', while realization dawned on Ron's face.

"Blimey", said Ron slowly, "you told me in second year you could heal without a wand. I should have known you didn't need one."

"And you knew, Hermione?", asked Harry, noticing how Hermione didn't seem to be surprised.

She nodded. "I saw Jess doing wandless magic in second year."

"You could have told us, you know", muttered Ron, sounding a bit disappointed.
He and Harry shared a look.

Mioha's heart dropped.

"Why did you tell Hermione and not us?", asked Ron grumpily.

"Well-"

"She didn't tell me, Ron", Hermione interrupted Mioha. "I told you, I saw her doing wandless magic. She summoned your broken wand in second year when you were about to hex Malfoy, remember?"

Ron's face had gotten a sulky expression. "But still, you could have told us at least", he said sourly.
Harry was staying rather quiet.

"It wasn't my secret to share!", Hermione protested.

"Then why didn't you, Jess?"
Ron turned towards her. He looked extremely disappointed.

"I still felt kind of new to everything", Mioha explained carefully. "I was a muggle born, sorted into Slytherin. I didn't want to stand out even more, especially after the drama in first year."
She sighed.
"I kind of always avoided thinking about telling you", she admitted looking down at her feet. "I didn't want you to think I was weird."

Harry nudged Ron into the side, who looked like he was trying to swallow his discontentment.
"Jess", said Harry slowly. "You've fallen asleep on the Astronomy tower in third year. How could you not be weird?"
He grinned, showing her he wasn't angry.