A Bend in Time

After potions, the 1st year Slytherins trail into the common room quietly lest they disturb the 5th and 7th years. Rowan stifles a yawn and takes a seat at a table with a set of gobstones. "Want to play?"

Severus stiffened recalling the fact that their mother had once been the Captain of the Gobstones team at Hogwarts. The letter from their grandfather had arrived late. He hadn't had much time to read the letter until lunch. Their grandfather said their mum had left Prince Manor. Her whereabouts and return were uncertain.

Sensing Severus's turbulent emotions, Rowan hastily rises from her seat and moves over to another table. "How about wizarding chess then?"

Distracted Severus stumbles to the other table sitting down and bumping his shins. He winces and carefully sets his school bag close to his chair lest anyone trips and scatter their ink all over their parchment paper and books. It had already happened once that he had seen, and the memory had been vividly impressed into his mind.

"Black or white?" Rowan asked leaving Severus to automatically pick the nearest chess piece, white. The chess pieces promptly line up on the chessboard ready for battle.

Trying to distract Severus from the departure of their mother, Rowan asks, "So, have you made any friends yet?"

"Yeah, Sirius isn't too bad," Severus muttered trying to think where to move first. His thoughts felt sluggish and dull weighed down by his emotions.

"I meant in Slytherin," Rowan arched her brow at Severus. "As nice it is that you already have two Gryffindor friends, you need to have a few in your own house too. We will be here for the next 7 years, you know."

Severus does not immediately respond by ordering his pawn to move up two spaces and remove Rowan's knight before she retaliated by taking his rook. "I suppose, there is Terry Greengrass. He's quite the amiable fellow and my roommate."

"Well, that's progress," Rowan murmured watching Severus's bishop slide diagonally in the middle of the board.

"Well, I am just glad you made any friends," Rowan f instructed a pawn to block the bishop's path.

"I'm not that unsociable," Severus growled as he brutally moved his bishop forward to take Rowan's pawn.

"No, what I meant is that I'm surprised that you actually became friends with Sirius Black," Rowan truthfully stated as she ordered her knight to take Severus's bishop.

Severus lets out a soft curse as he moves his rook forward. "Though you can certainly call Sirius arrogant and downright mischievous, he's alright," he thoughtfully concluded.

Rowan eyes the board in triumph. "Well, that's good." And ruthlessly sent out her bishop to take Severus's rook. Their conversation ends as they solely concentrate on the violent chess match in front of them. The moving chess pieces attack and crush each other until a bloody victor emerges in the end, Rowan.

Defeated, Severus falls back into his seat to sulk. "Well, what about you? Have you made any friends yet?" He taunted.

"Well, excluding Lily, I'm on friendly terms with three other girls," Rowan snickered at Severus's unhappy glare. "The girls are sweet and quirky in their own way."

Before their conversation can continue a sudden exclamation causes them to look up at a couple of first-years gathered around the common area board. Severus and Rowan glance at each other with curiosity before getting up to take a closer look. "What's going on?" Severus asked, a delicate-looking boy with floppy hair and hazel-colored eyes, who coincidentally was one of his roommates as well.

Terry Greengrass turns and says, "We have flying lessons this Thursday which means we're stuck with the Gryffindors."

Severus's eyes twinkle in delight as Rowan's face wanes tragically. Terry notices Rowan's reaction and misunderstands the situation. "I know the Gryffindors can be pretty annoying, but they're not all that bad."

Rowan doesn't bother to correct Terry's misunderstanding and instead mumbles, "I'll be heading back to the girl's dorm."

Terry frowns at seeing Rowan's depressed figure walk away. "Was it something I said?" Terry said in bewilderment.

"Girls are weird like that," a voice commented from behind them. Severus and Terry turn around to see Perfect Wilkes pityingly gaze at them. "Boys learn this wise lesson when considering the opposite sex. Girls are strange creatures, one minute they're perfectly fine, the next they want to flay the skin off your back. You're better off just learning to run when things look hairy."

Severus dubiously eyes Wilkes as Terry shrugs. "Mm, that's generally what I do around my older sisters. However, I've learned that if I throw a chocolate frog in the opposite direction and then run, it generally works out better."

"That's absolutely brilliant!" Perfect Wilkes exclaimed. "Why hadn't I thought of that?" He mumbled to himself with a frown.

Severus rolls his eyes and huffs, "I'm heading back to the dorm. Coming?" Terry follows after Severus leaving a mumbling Wilkes in their wake.

Upstairs in the girl's dorm, Rowan's three roommates glance up from their homework as she enters their shared dorm room. Gloating over at Rowan, Silvia Flint cheeky grinned, "I never thought you would be bad at something, Rowan Prince."

"That's just rude, Silvia!" Bethanie Fawley chided her friend.

"But it's true," Tiffany Topsy cried out in Silvia's defense.

"No, it's okay," Rowan grumbled. "I'm not very good at handling live specimens. I never have and never will be."

"I guess that means becoming a potion master is out of the question," Silvia cackled earning her a dirty look from Rowan.

Tiffany thoughtfully purses her lips and sincerely says, "If it's any consolation, I'm bad at potions too."

"Thanks," Rowan drily said as Bethanie sighs at her friends' antics. Bethanie apologetically smiles at Rowan, who gestures with a shrug of her shoulders that it was fine.

The three girls return back to their previous studies as Tiffany turns the page of her textbook and sullenly comments, "I hate Herbology. All that dirt and creepy plants, ick."

"Mm, at least it's better than Potions," Silvia argued. "One wrong ingredient and all your hard work went to waste."

"True," Bethanie mumbled as she kept reading the chapter and taking careful notes. While the three girls continued their studies, Rowan blankly stares at the ceiling in thought. It wasn't that she was afraid of flying or heights, it's just that she had a fear of falling with the combined factor of an overactive imagination.