The bell struck 2:30 as Jack pushed back from the long wooden bench he shared with Eustace and Cyprian in Charms class. He stretched, rolling a cramp out of his shoulders. Care of Magical Creatures. He’d managed to avoid Cassandra all day, but that would be harder now. The practical nature of the class meant working in close quarters, and a mixed House grouping of Gryffindors, Ravenclaws, and some Hufflepuffs offered no easy escape.

  Shouldering his bag and tucking his left hand into his pocket, he strode down the stone spiral staircase of the Academic Wing, his footsteps echoing as he descended. The stairs were uneven from centuries of use, worn smooth in the middle and treacherously steep. He took them two at a time, moving fast to avoid getting boxed in by slower students.

  He ducked under a low archway at the bottom and stepped out of the West Tower, emerging into the bright autumn afternoon. The September sun spilled across the castle grounds, warm and golden, glinting off the leaded glass windows of the Great Hall.

  Jack cut across the Flying Lawn, the grass soft underfoot, and veered down the worn path leading toward the paddocks. A light breeze carried the scent of earth, hay, and distant wood smoke. From the direction of the gamekeeper’s cottage, a thin gray column curled lazily into the sky.

  Near the paddock fence, a tall, broad-shouldered youth was locked in battle with a crate of what appeared to be angry feather dusters. The struggling objects flapped wildly, shedding bits of fluff, as the young man – who had to be Rubeus, the assistant his classmates had mentioned – attempted to wrestle them under control.

  "Get back in there, yeh little monsters," the boy was muttering, though 'boy' was inappropriate for someone already pushing seven feet tall. "Professor MacGregor'll have my hide if yeh eat his garden again..."

  "Finally decided to show up, did ye?" came a crotchety Scottish voice. "Gather round, ye dawdlers!"

  Professor MacGregor emerged from behind the stone fence – a weathered, bandy-legged wizard with a face like a bad-tempered sweet potato crossed with Popeye. He squinted at the assembled students, then at a pocket watch that seemed to be arguing with him.

  "Yer late," he announced to the pocket watch. "Rubeus! Bring out the specimens!"

  "Yes, sir!" Rubeus abandoned his duster-wrangling and disappeared into the barn, returning with a collection of large terracotta pots that he handled as gently as baskets of eggs.

  "Now then," MacGregor stomped over to the pots. "Who can tell me—BLAST IT, KEEP THOSE CONFOUNDED RABBITS AWAY FROM ME BLOODY CABBAGES!"

  A group of thoroughly ordinary-looking rabbits had appeared at the garden fence. Professor MacGregor looked ready to commit lapicide.

  "Sorry about that, Professor!" Rubeus scooped up the rabbits, managing to cradle them in one massive hand while balancing another pot. "They've got an’ unlocked their hutch agin."

  "Ruddy lagomorphic fiends’ll be the death of me," MacGregor growled. "Right. As I was saying. Who can tell me the distinguishing features of a Whistling Wartcap?"

  Jack immediately dropped his gaze to the muddy ground, avoiding eye contact. He’d skimmed the assigned chapter in Magical Beasts of the British Isles but couldn’t for the life of him recall anything beyond "whistling" and "warty." But this class was shared with Ravenclaw, which meant in exactly one second one of them would–

  As predicted, a try-hard Ravenclaw to his left shot her hand into the air with offensive enthusiasm.

  "It’s a small, mottled brown sentient fungus with three distinct wart-like protrusions on the cap," the girl recited. "When handled or agitated, it emits a sharp whistling sound as a defense mechanism to deter predators. It’s commonly found in damp woodland areas, especially near boggy terrain."

  "Five points to Ravenclaw," MacGregor said reluctantly. He gestured toward the large, upturned pots arranged on the ground beside him. "We’ve got a batch of ‘em here, freshly harvested yesterday. Your job is to handle these beauties carefully - carefully, mind ya - and try not to agitate them. If you do, you’ll find out exactly why they’re called Whistling Wartcaps. Bleedin’ headache-inducing."

  Rubeus chuckled, tucking the last rabbit back into its cage. "Aye, they’ll whistle somethin’ fierce if you’re not gentle! Learned that the hard way meself."

  "Rubeus, unveil our guests.” MacGregor waved behind him. “For our first practical lesson of term, we start with something appropriately gentle." Behind him, Rubeus overturned the pots. A medley of annoyed whistles piped from behind him, like a faulty steam calliope firing up.

  “Now everyone, partner!”

  Jack promptly melted backwards through the crowd of students to put as much space between himself and Cassandra Hightower as possible. His heel caught on a molehill.

  "Careful there!" A pair of hands caught his arm just before he fell on his backside. "Are you alright, Jack?"

  Jack found himself looking down into bright blue eyes and a small, freckled, slightly upturned nose. Lavinia Lloyd smiled up at him as she helped him right himself.

  He’d seen her before, at meals and in the common room, but never this close.

  She was pretty tall for a girl - about four inches shorter than him - with round blue eyes and prominent teeth that somehow added to rather than detracted from her charm. Her shoulder-length dark brown hair was just long enough to pull back in a ponytail but short enough that it wouldn't get in her way. She had a habit of covering her mouth when she laughed, as if embarrassed by her smile, though Jack thought it was a very nice smile when she forgot to hide it.

  Come to think of it, she reminded him a lot of Katharine Hepburn.

  Support the creativity of authors by visiting the original site for this novel and more.

  "Thanks," Jack replied, getting his feet under him. Her hands were still on his arm. "I’m ok. Nice catch."

  She seemed to realize that she was holding onto him and quickly let go. “Sorry,” she apologized, “Just a reflex.”

  The spring in her voice caught his ear – he'd never paid attention to her speaking before, and now that he did he realized that he hadn’t heard anything quite like it. Her words sounded like they were dancing upward at the end of each sentence.

  His curiosity was piqued so strongly that he found himself asking: "Your accent – where are you from? It's really..." he searched for an appropriate word, "...it's really neat."

  "Oh?" She blinked, surprised, her voice lifting melodically. "Ah—I'm from Aberwyvern." A shy sort of pleasure flickered across her face. "Most people can't place it."

  "Is that in…Ireland?" Jack tried to remember his British geography. She sounded kind of Irish to his untrained ear.

  "Wales," she supplied, tucking her hair behind her ear.

  "Wales," Jack repeated, trying to remember where exactly that was on the map. Was that near Liverpool? "I've never met anyone from Wales before. It's like music when you talk."

  “Ah, Jack,” she ducked her head, dark hair falling forward. "You're teasing me."

  "No, honest!" Jack said quickly, charmed by both her accent and her embarrassment about it. "It's really cool."

  Lavinia looked confused. "I didn’t realize I sounded like a winter breeze." She tilted her head slightly.

  Jack paused, “No, ‘cool’ means nifty.”

  She looked even more confused.

  “I mean, like…stylish!” Jack explained hastily. Understanding dawned in her eyes. “Sorry. Not cold…”

  “I try not to sound Welsh usually," she admitted, trying to police her voice into Received Pronunciation. "It’s not proper. But sometimes when I'm nervous it slips out–" She stopped herself, turning red.

  Jack was about to ask her more but Professor MacGregor’s coarse brogue called the class to order.

  "Enough chitter-chatter and time-awastin’," MacGregor said impatiently, "let's begin. Whistling Wartcaps, lovely peaceful creatures when treated right. Unlike those pestilential rabbits that keep after me veggies!"

  Lavinia unbuttoned her blouse cuffs and rolled up her sleeves. Unlike many of the other girls who hung back from the more hands-on aspects of this class, she was already reaching for their brown and speckled Wartcap before Rubeus had fully set it down. It was an enormous fungus, nearly a foot in diameter and half again as tall, deceptively light for its size. Two spindly limbs ending in three twiggy fingers waved from its sides.

  "They like to be scratched just behind their caps," Rubeus explained enthusiastically to them. "Makes 'em whistle different notes. Go ahead and sing to ‘em and they’ll pick up the tune! If yeh're gentle, they'll even harmonize!"

  For the next hour, Jack and Lavinia worked with their Wartcap, which took a liking to both Jack’s Broadway show tunes and Lavinia’s folk songs. He found himself paying attention to the melody of her voice as they worked, so different from the accents of his friends from Yorkshire, Lincolnshire, and Cumbria. It was especially different from Cassandra's classy RP. Even Mina's Irish lilt, which had charmed him from the start, couldn't compare to the melody in Lavinia's voice when she forgot to be self-conscious about it.

  His mind was divided as he worked – partly on Cassandra (who he was steadfastly ignoring) and her father, partly on the upcoming Quidditch tryouts, and partly on trying to get Lavinia to speak more so he could hear her pretty accent.

  “Hey Semmes,” Mossflower called over, “What’s that song from you’ve got your Wartcap singing?”

  “On the Town, it’s from a Muggle musical,” Jack replied, glad to get his mind on something familiar and to show off a bit. He scratched the Wartcap again, and its whistling grew more complex. “Hang on, it’s coming around to the chorus.” He took a breath as the enormous fungus began to warble, then joined in a duet, his voice carrying across the grounds in a fine baritone:

  “New York, New York! It’s a helluva town, the Bronx is up and the Battery’s down!

  The No-Maj ride in a hole in the ground - New York, New York! It’s a helluva town!”

  The Wartcap provided a surprisingly good harmony. A few students applauded, amused by the impromptu performance. MacGregor paused his patrolling to listen. Young Rubeus beamed with pride at his mushroom’s musical talent.

  "Didn't know you could sing that well, Semmes," Mossflower chuckled. “You’ll have to come down to the Three Broomsticks during open night!”

  "My mom teaches music and was in wizarding theater back home," Jack explained, giving the Wartcap another scratch. "Hard not to pick it up when you grow up with it. We had to sing a lot at Ilvermorny too."

  Their Wartcap gave an long appreciative whistle, clearly hoping for more.

  Lavinia was a good partner, quick to laugh at the mushroom’s attempts at whistling along with Jack's renditions of Rodgers and Hart.

  She had rolled her sleeves up past her elbows in the warm afternoon sun, revealing tanned, freckled forearms.

  If he hadn’t been so caught up in himself, he might have noticed the way she hummed under her breath or how she kept glancing at him while managing their Wartcap. There was something reassuring about the way she handled herself with no fuss or pretense, just capable hands and quiet confidence, the ease of a country girl.

  The way she sat - perched on the edge of their workbench with one foot tucked under her skirt - wasn't exactly ladylike, but then again, this was Magical Creatures class. Even the most proper witches had to get their hands dirty.

  "You're really good at this," Jack commented, admiring how naturally she worked with the creature. A Ravenclaw girl nearby let out a shriek as her fungus spit up yellowish goop all over her.

  "I’m used to all sorts of magical beasts," she said, picking a dead bit of lichen off their Wartcap. "We’ve got a valley full of coblynau at home, and there's a Welsh Green that nests in the mountains south past Conwy town. Bit more interesting than lady stuff—" She caught herself with a smile.

  MacGregor dismissed the class as the bells rang from the tower. Lavinia shoved her books into her schoolbag, which had a Caerphilly Catapults patch neatly sewn onto the flap. "Jack, I was wondering–" She paused, then continued, "Some of us are going flying later, maybe do a race through the valley. If you're not too busy..."

  Jack threw his bag over his shoulder, "Flying? That sounds great, but I got Quidditch tryouts! Don't want to be late!" He gave her an apologetic grin, already backing away. "See you later, ‘k?" He turned and sprinted up toward the castle, his mind computing how much time it would take to get his gear and get down to the field.

  Lavinia watched him go and blew an errant strand of hair from her face.