4:53 pm, an hour before dinner

She was in the library against her own will, but Lexi was used to it. There was an astronomy assignment hanging over her head that she absolutely needed to get done this weekend with her sort-of friend Ellie. She didn't know the Slytherin that well, aside from the obvious Vampire thing, there was little that she truly knew about her. It was intriguing to her, pair up the Slytherin and the Gryffindor, the Vampire and the Werewolf. Lexi cracked a smile as she walked towards the back of the library where she told Ellie she'd meet her.

The assignment was something to do with a star chart[1], again. They were learning the basics so that making and interpreting star charts would become easier in the future. She sat down, laying her blazer across the back of the chair and smoothing out her skirt before sitting down. The sleeves of her shirt were  slightly wrinkled from being scrunched, so she rolled them up and she got her supplies out.

She looked around for Ellie, and didn't see her quite yet, so she went to go find a few books on beginner star charts. Hopefully Ellie would be better at star charts, Lexi had a feeling she missed one of those critical lessons about them during the full moon.

1.	I'm throwing the link in so that we have reference

4:57 pm[1]

Ellie strode into the library with her messenger back on one arm, weighed down by only the essentials she normally brought for Astronomy classes. It was Saturday, and she was expected to be doing her homework, which included a rather unpleasant project. Although she loved looking at the stars and learning the constellations, Ellie was not a fan of making star charts. She liked looking at all the different star charts she came across, but actually making them? It was tedious work. Not to mention she was expected to work with another student on this assignment, and Ellie had never been a fan of group work.

As she walked towards the back of the library, however, Ellie knew that this time would be a bit different, if not more pleasant. Lexi McGee was one of those people who didn't make Ellie feel even the least bit uncomfortable. In all honesty, Lexi was probably one of the closest examples to an actual friend that Ellie had. They hardly knew one another, but they had talked to one another on occasion, which was more than Ellie could say about most of her other classmates. Ellie's New Year resolution had been to try harder at making friends, though, so maybe it wouldn't stay this way for long.

Ellie quickly came across the table Lexi had laid her stuff on, but saw no Lexi around. Figuring she had gone to look through the library's reference material (which was good to start with), Ellie put her bag down on the seat across from Lexi's. She unrolled the gridded parchment the professor had given to them for this assignment, laying it flat on the table between their seats.

Once that had been accomplished, she took out her notes on making star charts and set them out before rising. She turned towards the Astronomy section of the library, hoping to seek out Lexi so as to aide her in the search for helpful star chart material.

1.	[Edit: Added tag]

Great, the one book Lexi needed and it was just out of reach. On her tiptoes, she was this close to getting it. She looked around quick, and seeing as no one was looking, she jumped up, pushing herself up on the shelf below and grasping it between her tiny, pale fingers. Got you, she thought to herself, flipping it open. The book was bound in dark brown leather, pressed with gold letters that read 'A Thorough Examination Into the Beginner's Star Chart.' It looked very very exciting. She cracked the book open, noticing the well-worn pages, maybe this book was worthwhile? She started reading a few of the lines.


Yep, the book would work. She closed it and set it down on the counter in front of her, then deciding the book in front of her plus the book she'd just picked out was enough, she turned to head back to the table. As she turned the corner, she ran right into Ellie and dropped the two books in her hands. "Sorry!" She said suddenly, grinning as she went to pick up the books.

"I found two books already," she said from the floor, picking up a few loose pages that had fallen out and stuffing them back in rather hurriedly. "You can look for some too if you want. Don't take too long though, we've got an hour to work before dinner," she said with a smile. For some reason, she was just in a good mood right now. This morning, not so much. Right now? She was feeling optimistic, maybe it was just because she could count on Ellie to make her feel... not so different. They could be different together.

Ellie probably would have heard Lexi's footsteps from the upcoming aisle if her mind hadn't been totally focused on remembering exactly where the Astronomy section was. Ellie loved reading and visiting the Hogwarts library, but lately she'd been spending more time in the magical creatures section than anywhere else. Just as she was getting the feeling that she was in the right area of the library, Ellie and Lexi collided. Thankfully, it wasn't painful or nearly enough to knock one of them over. The surprise still made Lexi drop her books, though.

"No harm done," she quickly replied after Lexi's apology. Ellie caught a quick glimpse of the golden letters on one of the books as Lexi retrieved them and some scattered papers (Ellie would have helped, but Lexi seemed to have everything under control). She offered Lexi a small grin at the sight of the other girl's smile. Already, Lexi was proving to be an excellent partner - she proved that she was serious about the assignment by taking the initiative to search out books, and Ellie was feeling comfortable enough to be grinning at the girl. Hopefully, the rest of the assignment would go smoothly.

"Looks like the books you've got there are perfect for the assignment. If we need anything else, we could always come back. Let's try to finish before dinner, though, agreed?" This time, a real smile graced Ellie's pale pink lips, remaining there as they headed back to their table and took their respective seats.

As they settled down and got comfortable, Ellie glanced over the notes she had taken in class. Her smile had gone and was replaced with a more studious expression. The pale girl's stormy gray eyes skimmed her own handwriting for anything that would help them in the process.

"All I have here is that its best to start in the center, and go quadrant by quadrant. Does either book have more specific instructions on how we should approach this?" Ellie was all for just placing a dot at the center, then working through each constellation and significant stars piece by piece. Nevertheless, she was always open to more efficient ways of doing things. If a book couldn't help Lexi and herself, they'd just have to go with the vague method of charting their professor had described. Knowing where the constellations actually are in the sky was probably going to be the easier part of this, and the drawing of them in the right directions would be slightly more difficult.

At least, that is how Ellie perceived the project.

"Agreed," Lexi said, glad that Ellie was in a good mood as well. Or at least that's what she got from the girl's smile. She had a nice smile; pointy teeth and all. Lexi was glad Ellie had physical differences like her; Lexi had gold, wolf-like eyes, and Ellie had her fangs. "Hopefully we won't need anything else, two books are good enough for me."

Alice would have hit her for that last comment. According to her, two books were never enough. But it didn't matter, because that wasn't who Lexi was working with. The Gryffindor's smile wavered as she followed Ellie back to the table, but she quickly pushed the thought of her cousin out of her mind. She couldn't afford to be attached to people so close to home. It was too easy to get hurt. Much too easy.

She plopped the books down on the table and sat across from Ellie, shifting to fix her skirt that constantly bunched up beneath her when she sat down. After her lazy morning, she felt like being presentable enough to walk around the castle and not look like a bum. Especially if she was going to be working with a partner, she didn't want to give off a bad appearance to her still-new friend.

After she fixed the skirt dilemma, she rummaged through her bag to pull out a roll of grid parchment, a ruler, and her new quill from Christmas. It lasted super long, and you didn't even have to dip it in ink! It was revolutionary for Lexi, who was constantly complaining about having to dip into the ink, then write, and repeat.

"Uhhh," Lexi said softly as she flipped through the dry pages of the first book. "I remember professor saying something about doing big quadrants, something about the North and the South..."

She paused, reading silently to try and refresh her simple-minded first-year brain. "It says here to start with four quadrants, and do one at a time. So we just have to start with the very center," she said, marking her parchment, "And then find the directions, like North and East and such. Then we have to just place the zodiac constellations, nothing too hard I guess."

Who was she kidding? Astronomy was not her best subject right now, actually, none of the classes were her best. When Lexi wasn't her best, nothing was her best. She was hoping to get motivated somehow, to get her act together and start getting her marks going in a positive direction. "And Polaris, that one is in the North. So we mark that first. How does that sound to you?"

Ellie marked the centre of the grid parchment as Lexi did the same with hers, listening to the instructions she summarised from the book. She labelled the four edges of the parchment using the four cardinal direction's initial, placing the "W" on the right and the "E" on the left despite how unnatural it felt. Ellie was familiar with how star charts were used, so she knew why the directions were switched. It still felt awkward writing it on parchment though.

"That sounds like a good place to start," Ellie conceded, marking the star Polaris a little above the centre, along the north line. "And since that's connected to the Ursa Minor constellation, which extends in a curve to the right, I think we should focus on the northeast - err, I mean, the northwest quadrant. The upper right one."

Ellie glanced over at Lexi briefly, wondering if she had lost the bright-eyed Gryffindor because of her slight mix-up. But it's not like Ellie was any good at reading people at a glance. Her attention made its way back to the virtually blank parchment. Since it didn't have to be detailed down to the degree, Ellie wasn't too worried about exact measurements, but most of the constellations were made up of straight lines. Never one to trust in her ability to draw a straight line, Ellie rummaged through the bag she had brought with her.

"I know I brought a ruler with me.." she muttered to herself as she rummaged, distinctly recalling that she had done just that. Even so, half-a-minute of searching proved fruitless, and Ellie turned back to properly facing the table, feeling undeniably confused. Trying not to let the disappearance of her ruler faze her too much, Ellie merely took up her quill and leaned one forearm on the left side of the grid so her right hand could have more control. She was about to start drawing the Ursa Minor constellation, but froze with her quill still in the ink well.

"Do we even need to have Ursa Minor? I mean, even though we learned it, it's not technically a zodiac constellation..." Ellie enquired Lexi with a puzzled and thoughtful expression. She was unsure of the answer, and was sorely tempted to go all the way to the Astronomy tower for affirmation, if need be (i.e. if Lexi was unsure as well).

Lexi mirrored Ellie's movements and markings, feeling just as strange when she had to mix up the directions. West was West and East was East, unless you were making a star chart. Then everything was messed up for some reason. Well, Lexi knew the reasoning behind the switch, but that didn't make it feel any more natural.

She laughed a little as Ellie got confused, and met Ellie's glance. "It's alright, I'm just as confused, which is why I grabbed a million books." She said, opening another dusty, worn book to the section about star charts. It was basically the same thing that was in the other book, just using different wording.

"I don't think the professor will be too mad if we mess up a bit right?" Lexi said, noticing how her Polaris mark was higher up than Ellie's. "Oh, I've got a ruler with me!" Lexi said, pulling it out of the side pocket of her bag, "you can use it." She said, after Ellie had lined up her arm, "I forgot I had it, sorry."

"Ursa Minor? That's the umm," she said as she started flipping through pages of notes. "Well, I think it's a constellation, but it's not a zodiac like you said.... maybe we shouldn't use that one? I don't think we should because we're just supposed to do the zodiac signs, right?"

"I'm sure the Professor will find it in his heart to take it easy on our beginners' mistakes," Ellie couldn't help but smile bemusedly in response to Lexi insinuating that they'll probably mess up somewhere along the line. She knew that their star charts would not be perfect - neither one of them had ever made one before - but their professor was probably expecting more than just one or two mistakes in everyone's charts.

Ellie's eyes showed a small bit of surprise when Lexi whipped out her ruler and offered it to her. She knew that her mouth had hung open for a moment at how readily Lexi had offered the tool, but she quickly erased the vision of surprise by taking the ruler with a muttered "Thanks." A moment later, the pale girl added, "We can share it since you probably only have the one."

Ellie looked through her own notes as Lexi flipped through hers, stopping when she reached a page entitled "The Zodiacs." They had taken notes on each of the twelve better-known zodiac constellations, and had even discussed  Ophiuchus, which was the thirteenth and lesser-known of the zodiac constellations. The only problem was that they had to figure out their placement in relation to one another, and which way they would go.

"Well, there are thirteen of them, so hopefully this doesn't take too long," Ellie murmured, looking through her notes to see which of the constellations would be in the upper-right corner (i.e. the northwestern quadrant). "Well, then, we can start with..." Ellie could find no obvious choices for the Northwest. "I think Leo is just barely in the Northwest.. But I dunno for sure," Ellie admitted, turning to one of the books Lexi had pulled out. She pulled it towards her and flipped it open, searching for a larger star chart for reference to all the zodiacs.

Lexi liked working with Ellie, she could stay on task and resist being distracted for now. Whereas Lexi was trying to not get lost in all the information in the dusty, old book about Astronomy. There was so much stuff. Moons, stars, constellations; how in the world did people know all of this? Better yet, how could the professor know all of this and teach them about it at the same time? Was he crazy?

"Yep, only got one. Surprised I even remembered it," Lexi said in regards to her ruler. She looked up to where Ellie was looking at a page that said "The Zodiacs." Zodiacs. Lexi was a Libra. She knew all about it thanks to her little brother, Joshua. He'd had a short fling with the topic before school started after reading about them in a book. He insisted on sleeping outside for a month after that so he could 'watch the sparkles move'. Or in reality, he just camped out in a two-man tent with Lucas for two nights before decided it was too cold to go star gazing.

"Only thirteen," Lexi sighed, reading up information on one called 'Taurus' before flipping to Leo. "I think this says that Virgo should be in the North and Leo is right next to it, so yeah, Northwest I think." She said. For all she knew, she had this star chart completely upside down. Alice probably knew which way a star chart went.

Lexi started to line up her quill with where Virgo was supposed to be and started marking it, "Here goes nothing, I suppose..."