No one knew your name or cared at school

Everybody knows the kids are cruel

You went from troubled teen and became a beauty queen

I got mixed up somewhere in between -Good Time Girl by Scouting for Girls

Natalie McMullen had a lot of friends. Girls and boys. She wasn t a tomboy, or a complete girly girl though. She was just Natalie, and that s all she wanted to be. Her hair rested against the middle of her back. It was a mousy brown colour and her eyes were a nice shade of pale blue. She wasn t the most beautiful girl in school. She knew that. 5 years ago,
she was geeky and her hair refused to tay straight. In 6th year that all changed. She spent her full summer leading up to 6th year, using Witch Beauty products and information from muggle magazines. She didn t have a boyfriend, but in her own way she was beautiful. This year she was going into her last year of Hogwarts, and yes, she knew it would be tuff for her. She loved Hogwarts, and leaving it seemed like a nightmare that she hoped to wake up on when the day of leaving it forever arrived. But she wasn t going to think about that. Not today, the day she was packing to leave to go to. She had put all her clothes into her trunk and made her way down the stairs and into the cupboard where she kept her broom and it s cleaning kit.

"Natalie? Is that you?" she heard her mothers frantic voice call out. Her mother was always like this before she left for Hogwarts. Always running around the house, making sure her daughter had everything packed and everything that she needed.

"Yeah Mum, it's me." she said pulling her broom out of the cupboard. She rested it against the wall and walked into the living room to meet her mother.

"Have you got everything?" she asked.

"Yes, Mum. I'm just getting my broom out the cupboard." She replied. Merlin, she couldn't wait to get back to playing Quidditch. She had only played it about five times during the summer, and she dedicated the rest to football, her favourite muggle sport. Her Dad had taught her how to play both when she was younger. Because, like herself her Dad was a Half-Blood wizard who had great interest in both of the sports. She looked at the moving picture of her Dad and herself on the shelf in the living room. She was sitting on a small, toy broomstick and her Dad was holding a football over the top of her head. She smiled to herself.

"Good," her mother started. "Now, take them upstairs and brush up for dinner and clean your room." she said to her daughter looking at her up and down. She had a pair of football shorts and a overly large white t-shirt on and her room was a disaster. "Colin and his family are coming for dinner, and I would like to give them a tour of the house. So please darling, make an effort." Natalie plastered a fake smile on her face and nodded. "Oh, and remember to put away anything to do with magic." Natalie nodded once again. Trudging back up the stairs to her bedroom. She hated Colin with a passion. Mum was only with him because he looked slightly liked Dad she thought to herself. She missed him so much. But she wouldn t think of him. She would make an effort to be nice to Colin and his kids tonight. Not for Colin or herself. But for her Mum. She had been a emotional wreck, and Natalie giving her new love cheek and death glares every time he spoke to her didn't help things.

She got changed into a pair of jeans and a black t-shirt with pictures of places in New York all over it. She looked in her mirror and made sure she looked appropriate for tonight's dinner. When she was ready, she heard voices out in her street, she walked to her window and looked out to see her best friend Reece playing football with a few of his friends from school. She knocked on the window and waved at him when he looked up. He gestured her to come out and but she shook her head and he nodded, understanding that she had to get ready for Hogwarts. Reece was a muggle, but he was her best friend therefore he knew about her other life.

Natalie was sitting at the dinner table beside her mother and across from Colin's son, Andrew who was absoloutley drop-dead gorgeous. Natalie disregarded this thought everytime her eyes wandered to him. He could end up being her step-brother for heavens sake!

"So, Natalie. What school do you attend?" Colin asked her in his posh accent. Natalie flashed a what-school-will-I-say-to-him look to her Mum. She had never been asked this before, everyone on her football team presumed she went to the same school as Reece. The school Natalie could never remember the name of.

"She goes to St. Margrets in London, Colin." Her Mum said saving her. "I didn t tell you?" she said smiling that teenage-girl-in-love smile at him. Natalie held down her Steak Pie that was threatning to re-appear chewed up and digested.

"No, sweetie. You didn't. It would have been good if she and Andrew went to the same school. It might be easier for them when we all move in together Don t you think?" Natalie almost choked on her drink. I'm moving in with who know? she thought. No,this is not happening. She looked at her Mum with a disgusted look.

"Excuse me." Natalie excused herself and slammed the front door on her way out. Reece was in the park across the road from her house. When he saw her storming over to him, he stopped the ball with his foot and and picked it up.

"Guys, am away tae talk tae Natalie. See yees later." he said to them and ran over to her. "Ya'll right?" he asked her as the two of them walked to the swings.

"No! I m flippin not!" she screamed out in frustraition, sitting down on the swing. She looked at her best friend who started to comfort her. Reece had short ginger hair, that sometimes fell into his eyes and he had just started to grow a beard. He was extremly fit. But Natalie could never think of him in that way, to her he was just Reece. Her best friend in the whole world. Reece asked her what was wrong and she told him about her mum and herself moving in with stupid, posh Colin and his two kids Andrew and Cathy. She hated the lot of them. Mostly though, she hated the Ministry. It was their fault her father had been killed. They were the ones that decided to send him to a wizard/muggle fight where a wizard was using magic in public. But the wizard was meesing with the wrong muggle, who had a knife. and just as her dad came in, the muggle was charging for the wizard, knife in hand and her Dad had stepped out of the alleyway at the wrong time and got it in the side of his stomach. So it was the Ministry s fault her mother decided to move in with some stupid, idiot who would keep her in a non-magic enviroment. Shit she thought. A non-magical enviroment. She had left her wand, broomstick and moving pictures left in her room, in clear sight!

"Reece! I need to go! I ve left- Oh fuck!" she exclaimed as she saw shadows pass through the fall window in her house. She bolted to her house and ran up the stairs as her mother set her hand on her bedroom handle. "DON'T!" Natalie shouted as she barged by Cathy and her Dad. Natailie stood infront of her bedroom door. "You can't go in there!" she said,as Reece came storming up the stairs.

"Natalie, sweetie." her mother said through gritted teeth. "Don't be embarrassed. We need to see if we would be able to fit another bed in here for Cathy." she said flashing a smile at 9 year-old Cathy.

"Mum! Seriously! You can't." she tried to show her mother through her eyes that she had left some magical stuff out. But her Mum wasn't getting it. That's when Natalie realised Reece was there. "Reece! Why don' t you tell the Gray s about how you believe that you could come up with a camera that could create moving pictures." She said looking at her mum when she said the last two words. "Oh, and while you do that, you wouldn t mind going into the broom cupboard and bring out the cleaning broom for me,would you? I need to give my room a quick brush before I leave tomorrow." Now her mother understood.

"Oh! Right. No need Reece. Natalie, go and clean your room now. And we will come back when it's done." she said looking at her sternly. "Now," she looked at Colin and started to move to the office she had. "We can make this room into Andrews bedr-"

Natalie had heard enough for one day. She and Reece entered her room, with a curious Andrew walking slowly by her room door.

"That was a close one." Natalie said falling back onto her bed.

Natalie kissed her mother on the cheek and said goodbye to Reece. "Promise to write this year,please?" she aid as she hugged him.

"You know I won't,but I'll try." he said hugging her back. Natalie pulled away and smiled sadly at him. She was always like this when she said goodbye to him every year. She looked at her mother now who was keeping her tears back. Reece had noticed that he should give them some privacy. "I'll just be waiting in the car." He said backing off,waving to Natalie as he dissapeared in the busy crowd of Muggles.

Her mother hugged her tight,and whispered in her ear. "I promise you,everything will turn out properly in the end." Natalie pulled away, and put a smile on for her face.

"Love you, Mum." she said. She didn t want to discuss last nights events. She wanted to get on the train to Hogwarts, feeling happy. She gave her mum one last hug and ran through the wall with her trolley and headed onto the Hogwarts Express.

Natalie sat in a compartment with three of her best friends. Claire Todd, Fiona Reid and Megan Caldwell. The four girls were discussing their summer activities, when James Potter swung the compartment door open, and grinned at the girls.

"Alright, there, Nats?" Natalie nodded and smiled at James.

"Not to bad Potter, not to bad." she said. James was one of her friends at Hogwarts, as were his friends Sirius, Peter, Remus, Alistair, John and Greg where close friends with her too. "So where's your pals then?" she asked looking behind him but only seeing red hair, and a Heads badge attached to the girls robes. Lily Evans came into view and smiled and waved at her and her three friends.

"Hi guys." she said. Lily was beautiful. You couldn t deny it. She had the most gorgeous, beautiful eyes and hair. She was every boys dream. And James Potter was living it. The four girls weren t best friends with Lily. But they shared a dorm with her so they knew her pretty well. "Er, Nicola? Could we see you in the prefects compartment? And if you could, find Remus and bring him along too? Me and James need to gather all prefects for a meeting."

"Ok." Nicola said, standing up. James, Lily and Nicola said goodbye and walked off.

!Well, I guess that's our que to go and greet everyone else.! Megan said. !I m going to find Patrick. Talk to you guys later! she said, grinning at her best friends and running off down the corridor looking for Patrick. Her boyfriend of the month. Natalie smiled to herself when she thought of the amount of boyfriends Megan has been through. But she had kept Patrick for the full summer, so it had to be going somewhere. Claire, bless her, had only Megan, Fiona, Nicola and herself as friends. It wasn't that Claire wasn t very talkative. Because she truthfully was very hyper. Just not in public. She had never had a boyfriend, but she wasn t unattractive, she was just shy. Natalie looked at Claire and stood up.

"I m going to go and see the guys. You comin ?" Claire nodded in response. The two girls headed out and searched for the boys. It was Sirius booming laugh that directed them to the right compartment. When Natalie and Claire walked in, John Rodger had some sort of brown gunk on his face, and a frog- yes, a real frog wriggling in his mouth. Sirius, Alistair, Greg and Peter were rolling around in laughter. "Merlin, Rodger. What the heck did you do?" Natalie asked, sliding in the gap between Sirius and Alistair who had managed to calm themselves. Claire took the seat at the window, beside Peter, looking uncomfortable.

John stood up and threw the frog out of the window.

"It wasn t me! They stupid bastards cursed my chocolate frog to turn into a real one when you bit into it!" he said, sticking the finger up at Sirius. Sirius grinned at him, while John sat back down and looked at Natalie.

"So how you doing, Scotland?" he asked. This was the way they always greeted each other at the start of every school year. "Bought me one of those skirt thing men wear where you come from, yet?" he asked, cheekily. Natalie punched him in the arm playfully. She wasn t close to Sirius. They knew what they needed to know about each other and that was it. But they had a connection, mentally.

"Don t think it would suit you, England." she said shaking her head, grinning. Sirius hadn t really changed that much. He and James were still the most handsome boys in the school. But Natalie just saw them as friends. That s how she saw most boys, friends. It wasn t that she hadn t been out with boys before, the relationship just never lasted. Some would say she was too boyish or too girlish. But the main reason was that the boys she dated felt threatened by her friendship with the guys. It didn t bother her though. "So, how was yir summer then?" she asked Sirius. When she asked this, the everyone in the compartment broke into their own little conversations. Claire was even talking to Alistair. A tall boy, with short brown hair. He was second on the handsome meter next to James and Sirius, and Claire was blushing like mad.

"Not to bad. What about yours?" He wasn t much for telling, was he? Natalie thought. Usually he was right into the details of what girls he met during the summer and how he had been stuck with Kreacher most of the time. It must ve been terrible this year she thought.

"The usual. Football and a little bit of Quidditch." she said smiling. He smiled back and they got into the topic of sports. Everyone talked to each other for most of the train ride. But when James walked in saying the train was about to stop in 15 minutes everyone parted to go and get changed into their robes. Natalie and Claire walked to the compartment they left their robes in to find Megan and Patrick glued to each others faces.

"God, get a room. Please." Natalie said pulling her robes out. Megan broke away from Patrick.

"This was the room." she said glaring at one of her best friends. She and Patrick were already in their robes so they left to go and find another empty compartment. Natalie made a face at them as they left.

"I m gonna go to the toilet to get ready, Ok?" she said as Claire walked back with her robes on. Claire nodded as Natalie exited the room. The walk to the toilet wasn t that far, she was looking out of the window when she bumped into someone. "I m sorry!" she said looking at who she bumped into. It was Matthew Nottingham, the Hufflepuff keeper. He was tall and buff. And Natalie had a small crush on him. But it was no big deal.

"S'alright." he said grinning at her. His blonde hair fell into his perfect, dazzling hazel eyes, that Natalie had fell into. Now the crush was a big deal.

A/N: My first Sirius/OC :D Please Review! :D I know this isn't the best, but the next one will be better! :D