Before you met me, I was alright but things were kind of heavy, you brought me to life -- Fall 1991

I took a deep breath and took out my wand, happy for the change in topic. I said it once more without my wand to assure myself I had it right before I nodded. "I'm ready but you had to be ready to do the counter-jinx as well when it doesn't work for me....if it doesn't work for me." I corrected myself too late but I didn't care. I just wanted him to be prepared to preform both of the spells.

I nodded at her.  I pointed my wand at the squirrel and muttered, "Impedimenta."  I looked at Juniper and explained what I was doing.  "It's so it'll stay still for practicing purposes."  I waved my wand again and casually said the hex.  It was nothing major so the squirrel would not get hurt or anything.

I nodded and took a few shaky breaths as I watched the black bats fly towards us. I bit my lip, raised my wand and said the counter-jinx while thinking about how much I wanted to help the squirrel. I put all my energy into it and was happy to notice that there was not as many bats coming towards us anymore. There was still a few though, so I hoped Lincoln would use the counter-jinx as well to stop them all.

With a wave of my wand, the bat-bogey hex was completely off of the squirrel.  I looked at Juniper.  "That was really good," I told her.  "It's to be expected not to fully succeed on your first time at it."

"So what I'm hearing is I wasn't horrible." I attempted to joke. He had said I was good though, that was something I had hardly ever heard. "I guess I did manage to stop it slightly." I could almost hear my Fathers voice in the background though, saying how I wasn't good enough. I closed my eyes and shook my head to clear it.

I nodded at her.  "I find that if you look on the positive side of things when it comes to spell casting, you tend to do better each time you tried rather than thinking negatively and saying that you sucked or something," I told her simply.

"Look on the positive side of things." I repeated. I could try but with me, positivity was in short supply. I took a shaky breath, as I closed my eyes and let it out slowly. I took a few deep breaths before I could open my eyes again. "I guess I could try that." I said still unsure. "I'm just not sure how well that will work." I admitted softly.

"It takes time," I said, speaking of the spell casting and thinking positively.  It took me plenty of time to really try to understand that in my entire life.

"I think it may take me longer than normal." I informed him softly. I shook my head slightly and forced a smile up at him. "But I will try. The spell did work. Somewhat." I could still hear Father saying how horrible I was and how I should've been able to get these spells.

I shrugged.  "Well, it's different for every student," I pointed out to her simply.  There was no reason to be discouraged on the first time using a spell.

"Everyone learns at there own pace." I forced myself to say. As much as Father wanted Draco and I to develop and learn at the same time, we were two different people, we had two different brains that took things in at different rates. I was starting to see that Father wasn't always right about everything.

I nodded at her.  "Do you want to try it again?" I asked, thinking it was definitely up to her.  I was not going to force her to do anything.

I thought about it for a moment, I did want to try it agin but I did not want to fail. I had to practice though, so I nodded. "Only if it's okay with you." I did not want to force him to stay and practice with me. I'm sure he had something better to do.

I nodded at her.  "I don't mind," I assured her.  I looked around.  "Let's use a different animal... just to not scare the same one too much," I suggested.

I nodded with a smile. "If you're sure, but that does sound good, using a different animal." I liked that he was thinking about the animals in all of this as well.