It is finally time to go back to Hogwarts! I think as Harry, my very-annoying-but-I-still love-him twin brother. I steel myself and run through the barrier to Platform Nine and Three Quarters. I think that this is one of the most confusing parts of the magic world.
I'm glad that we finally get to begin our second year. I get a bad feeling when I arrive on the platform. Don't get me wrong, I love Hogwarts. Something just didn't feel right. A… foreboding. But the feeling quickly goes away when I spot our frineds Ron Weasley and Hermione Granger.
"Hey, Hazel, hey Harry! Oh, Harry, have you broken your glasses again? Here: Oculus Reparo!" Hermione said. Harry's glasses had been broken by our cousin Dudley several times that summer, and he had to tape them together. But Hermione's spell made Harry's glasses repair themselves, and I watched the tape disappear.
"I'm gonna have to try to remember that one," Harry said. Hermioine chuckled.
"I can just remember it for you," I said. Harry wasn't a total dumbo, but he wasn't the smartest person I knew. I figured it was best to let Hermione or myself handle the remembering of that particular spell.
We waited for Ron, and the went onto the train to find a compartment. Ron's sister Ginny was on her own, except for a blonde girl about the same age as Ginny.
"Hey, Ginny! Who's this?" I asked.
"Hi Hazel. Oh, this is Luna Lovegood." Ginny introduced me to the blonde. She had a dreamy look about her. Her blonde hair was very curly and almost looked unkempt, except that it was obviously not.
"Hazel Potter? I've heard of you. Do you have your scar?" she asked. Even her voice sounded dreamy, like she lived in some kind of fairyland all the time. Not that it wasn't pleasant.
"Yeah," I replied. Harry and I both have scars on our foreheads, except that mine is a star, and his is a lightning bolt. They were given to us when we were barely a year old, when one of the most wanted wizards in history came to where we lived and killed our parents. He tried to kill us, too, but somehow, when he tried Harry, he was weakened, and when he went after me, it completely broke him. We were sent to live with Mum's sister, Petunia Dursley, her husband Vernon, and their son, Dudley. They treated us like scum.
They actually lied to us when we asked them how our parents were killed, on numerous occasions. They told us that they had been killed in a car wreck. They got away with it until last year, when a giant called Hagrid told us that Harry was a wizard and I was a witch. We went to Hogwarts, where we were finally accepted...by most. Practically all of the Slytherins hate us, especially Malfoy and his goons Crabbe and Goyle. Personally, I was glad when I was Sorted into Gryffindor last year.
"Can we see it?" Ginny asked. So I pulled my auburn bangs from my face and revealed my star scar.
"That's cool! What House are you in, Hazel?" Luna asked.
"Gryffindor," I said.
"Oh, that's the House I want to be in. My mother was a Ravenclaw, of course, but Dad was a Gryffindor. So we'll see what the hat thinks," Luna said
Later that evening, after the train ride is over
This year I would finally be a plain ordinary student, instead of a first year. So I found my way to a carriage with Harry, Ron, and Hermione. We went to the up tp the school, watching Hagrid tell the first years what to do. I noticed Luna looking uncertainly back at us, but I had no idea why. I shook the feeling off as the carriage began to move.
"Hey, Hazel, where did you go? We missed you on the train." Hermione said.
"I sat with Ginny and one of her friends. Luna was nice," I said.
The ride was about ten minutes. We all crowded to the Great Hall. Harry, Hermione, Ron, and I quickly found seats at the Gryffindor table, saving a spot for Ginny and maybe Luna. After a moment, the first years walked in. I spotted Ginny and Luna. They looked pretty confident. Luna still looked a bit uncertain looking back at us. McGonagall began the Sorting.
"Abercrombie, Euan!" she called. A Spanish looking boy came up. The hat immediately shouted, "Hufflepuff!" and he went over to the table.
After a little bit, we heard, "Lovegood, Luna," Luna went up to the platform. The hat deliberated about fifteen seconds, and then said, "Ravenclaw!" Luna went and sat at the Ravenclaw table, next to us. I looked and gave her an encouraging smile.
After a bit more:
"Weasley, Ginevra!" Ginny walked up amidst a few laughs about her name. The hat took about a second or two to decide.
"Gryffindor!" the hat yelled. Ginny came and sat in the seat next to me. Once the sorting ended, Dumbledore was getting up to give his start of term speech, the Great Hall doors burst open.
"What's this?" Dumbledore demanded.
"We know what you are, wizards. Now, don't move an inch, unless you want us to start shooting," said one of them. "Now, we have no idea how you people work, so tell us."
"We can do it anyhow we want. In our hands, mainly. And we call female wizards witches," said Dumbledore. That was a lie. We had wands. But I guess we weren't going to tell our secrets to a Muggle.
"We are going to escort all of these children here to the train station, where we will take them to Panem, the country across the ocean. There we will tell them more."
And then all the men began to herd us to the Hogwarts Express and shoved us on. I heard one of the men saying to another, "...got another thing coming, these wizards.."
"Ha! the Hunger Games will show them!"
"They think they're so superior. Did you hear that old man?"
The Hunger Games. I didn't like the sound of that.
