Chapter 1:
"All aboard!"
The cry from the conductor set the already frenzied bodies on the platform to fever pitch. Mums and Dads saying goodbye to their little ones in a flurry of tears and handkerchiefs, brothers and sisters helping their siblings onto the train; and a girl, a girl who looked old enough to know better, sprinting across the platform with a large backpack bouncing off her shoulders. She skidded to a halt in front of the conductor, sweeping her fringe from her eyes.
"My trunk?" She gasped, hoping it hadn't got lost in the confusion of running back to pay the taxi driver.
"All packed ahead, miss."
A grin spread across her face, and though she looked exhausted there was a definite pleasure behind the smile. She thanked the conductor and boarded the train, still beaming. Within moments, the whistle had blown and the train had started chugging its way down the line. Slowly, the girl walked through the carriages, swaying with the rhythm of the wheels. She was looking for somewhere to sit, for someone she knew. The chances of finding someone she knew would be slim, most of the passengers had never seen her before, but it was still worth trying.
She smiled wearily, no, there wasn't anybody – or at least there was nobody who looked like they had room for an extra person and she really didn't feel like walking all the way back up the train to check the other end. This was the last carriage before those reserved for prefects; she scanned its compartments, those that had their blinds open at least, now just hoping to find a seat more than anything. Oh, she was so tired! She leant against the wall between two compartment doors, promptly losing her footing as the train rounded a rather vicious bend.
She heard the click and rattle of a door opening a few metres away as she tried to right herself. With as much dignity as she could muster given that she had nearly fallen face first in the aisle, she stepped slightly out of the way to give the other person room to pass. Nobody passed. She raised her gaze slightly; a red headed face was poking round an open door a couple of compartments down.
"Need somewhere to sit?" it asked, extending its hand in a wave.
The girl shook her head, pulling her bag back up onto her shoulders – she didn't want to intrude, nor be taken in through pity as it hardly made a good first impression. An identical face popped round the other side of the door, giving her an amicable smile.
Were they twins? She wondered. Her closest neighbours at home were triplets so she wouldn't have been surprised if a third head had appeared in the doorway.
"Are you sure?" she asked, "If you haven't the room then I'll find somewhere else, I don't want to make your journey uncomfortable."
"It's just us, honestly," said the second head, "and I think we're more than gentlemen enough to give a bit of space to a young woman. Well, I am, I'm not sure about my brother here..."
"Hey!" the first one retaliated "way to make me look good! Seriously though, you're more than welcome to join us. Besides, if you stay out there you're liable to be run over by the food trolley, and you'll upset the entire train when they realise you're the one who meant they couldn't have their pumpkin pasties."
"I will?" she asked, a note of horror in her voice. "I mean, they'll really be upset if that happens- oh," She cut off her sentence at the disbelieving looks the boys were giving her, they had been joking. "Sorry, I'm really, really tired, I'm not normally such an idiot. Thanks," she dragged herself into the compartment, well aware that her face was roughly the colour of a tomato.
She settled herself into the corner by the window as it appeared free of anyone's personal belongings. She took a moment to compose herself, tucking her knees up to her chest, thinking of a neutral place to start conversation.
"How did you know I was out there?" she asked.
"You can thank our See-through specs," the one now sat on her right informed her while the other held out a large pair of glasses, "I mean, obviously they're see through, but they let you see through walls and stuff."
"They're a bit uh, temperamental at the moment," the one on the right continued, "Nice pants."
Nice...pants? If the girl had looked like a tomato before, she now looked like a tomato that had been in the sun for too long. She appeared to take a deep breath, rubbing at her sleepy eyes with her fingertips.
"I don't even know your names, and you've already seen my pants?" she asked incredulously, it was almost so unpleasantly absurd to be funny.
"Yes!" was their unanimous response.
The girl shook her head then began to laugh – somehow, most of your inhibitions went out the window when all formal boundaries had already been broken. It was hardly the kind of conversation she'd imagined she would be having on the journey.
"Don't expect me to ask you to return the favour," she said with a little more courage than she had felt thus far, "but mind you don't go telling too many of your friends, I'd like to keep what little dignity I have left!"
The boy sat opposite her gave her an almost sympathetic look and she felt a bit guilty for assuming they'd betray her.
"Sorry," she said quietly, "It's just..."
"It's nothing," the one to her right replied, "Honestly. As we said, they're temperamental – could've been anybody so there's no reason to turn it against you purposefully."
"Besides, you seem like a nice person," said the other one as if this meant she would be exempt from torment, "What's your name, anyway?"
"I'm Erin" she said, "Erin Marwell."
"Marwell? Isn't there a Quidditch player with that name?" the boys asked. Of course, boys always seemed to know that sort of thing...
Erin pretended to think about it for a moment and then shrugged,
"I'm sure there might be, it's a fairly common surname," she said in response, though she was fairly certain that it wasn't, "What can I call you?"
"We're Fred and George," said the one opposite her, "Weasley."
"The Weasley Twins," said the other, "or just twins, or any of a range of rather rude nicknames courtesy of those who don't understand the great skill that generally goes into causing mayhem on a grand scale – wait, you haven't heard of us?"
"I'm new," Erin replied shyly, though she couldn't help but smile at the energy the twins gave off as they spoke, "I guess you thought you just hadn't seen me before, but yeah, I'm new."
"New?" The twins turned to look at each other, smiling an inexplicable smile, "Well, welcome to Hogwarts!" The one next to her rolled his eyes at this,
"Welcome to the Hogwarts Express, we'll welcome you to Hogwarts when we get there, the train takes hours," he said. "Seeing as you have the pleasure of meeting us for the very first time, I'm Fred and my brother here is George."
"Really?" she asked – her triplet friends at home liked to swap their names round, so there was no reason to believe that the twins would be any less likely to do the same.
The twins looked what could only be described as astonished; no-one had ever asked if they were lying before.
"Eh, no," said the one opposite her, somewhat sheepishly, "I'm Fred, and that's George." She was right, then.
"So, you're Fred, and you're George," she said to each of them in turn, giving them a smile, "I'll remember that."
"You can try," Fred said, "but most people don't manage it, even Mum can't tell us apart sometimes! Though, it can come in handy sometimes..."
Given their apparent nature, Erin was sure that sometimes it did come in very handy!
Looking for something with which to thank the boys for their hospitality, she unzipped her backpack and began to rifle through the contents, pulling out amongst other things a plastic sports watch, a crumpled sheet of newspaper and a boy's t-shirt.
"What's that?" George asked, seizing the watch immediately.
"It's a digital watch," she told George, triumphantly pulling out a bag of toffees. She took two for herself and offered them round before continuing with her explanation, "It tells the time in twenty four hours, so once it gets past lunchtime it says thirteen zero zero for one o' clock. I think you can turn it back to twelve hour but I haven't figured it out yet."
She pressed a few buttons, showing him through the functions.
"It can show you how many steps you've jogged, what time it is in different parts of the world and has a timer on it too. Oh, and it's waterproof up to thirty metres."
A look of awe spread across his freckled face as he copied the buttons Erin had pressed. Fred crossed the compartment to get a better look at it.
"That's a muggle watch then," he said, eyeing it up and down, "Why do you have it?"
"Oh," Erin chewed on her toffees and swallowed them – she had just put them in her mouth, not expecting to have to speak for a while. "I got it because of what I said about it telling the time in different countries, I actually live in Germany so I needed to know what time it was here in England or I would've missed the train by an hour."
"Germany?" Fred spluttered, "Bit of a long way to come for school, isn't it?"
"It is," she admitted, "but my Mum went to Hogwarts and it's the best school really."
"You don't sound German," George said absently, having only been half listening due to his fascination with Erin's watch.
"She's English, idiot," Fred said to him, then, "Wait, you are English, right?" to Erin.
"I am," she replied, "My grandparents live here and their children were born here, I was too, it's just the house belongs to my Dad's family and it's the best place for us to live, apparently."
The word 'apparently' here was crucial: her living arrangements were hardly ideal. It had taken a train, an aeroplane and a taxi just to get to Kings Cross station and now she was on another train to the school itself.
"Will the food trolley be here soon? I'm starving," she asked, the toffees she had eaten not doing much to quell her hunger. She stood and straightened herself, preparing to hunt down the trolley instead of waiting. "Are you going to be getting anything?
"We're fine, our Mum packed us sandwiches," the twins replied – Fred held the door open for her.
As she walked down the train, Erin took the time to reflect on her experience of Hogwarts (or at least its students) so far. The twins were lovely, if slightly troublesome, but she was a little surprised by her reactions to them. Maybe it was just that she was tired, but she knew that had she been at home she would've taken them in her stride – given as good as she'd got, laughed and joked 'til the cows came home; she didn't want to come across as being too shy and retiring, that wasn't how you made friends. Friends were what she would need, after all, all these miles from home. Ah, home. She smiled briefly to herself, her Mum had had a great time at Hogwarts and she was sure she would too when she felt more like herself.
"Ah, hello," she called out as she came across the witch pushing the trolley, "What have you got to eat?
When Erin returned to the compartment she was sharing with Fred and George, her arms were literally full of food.
"I didn't know what to get!" she said in defence of herself as she poured it onto the spare seat, "It all looked so good, and I'm so hungry..."
Fred looked at George and they both shrugged, in a way that said that they weren't judging her. Yet again, why had she said it? Or more, why had she assumed they would automatically be against her?
"Sorry, I'm just grouchy because I'm tired," she apologized, "I bought you each a cookie, to say thank you for letting me sit with you."
"You didn't have to," George said, "but as you did, we'll gladly accept them, right Fred?"
Fred already had his biscuit in his mouth.
"Someone doesn't need asking twice!" Erin said with a small laugh, tucking herself back into her corner seat.
"Do you have any brothers or sisters, Erin?" Fred asked.
"No, just me," Erin replied, "How about you?"
The three of them chatted as they ate; Erin learnt that the twins had four brothers and a sister, and they learnt that she was jealous of their sandwiches – apparently cooking wasn't her mother's greatest skill. They played a few games of Exploding Snap; Erin won twice, but as the weather outside darkened she grew considerably more tired.
"I think I might try and get some sleep," she said with a yawn. Clearing some of her stuff out of the way, she picked up her bag and rested it behind her back with the intention of using it as a pillow.
"Are you going to be comfortable like that?" George asked, "I can move over if you want to stretch out across the seat, or you can rest on my shoulder if you'd like."
"He just wants to look down your top," Fred teased, though Erin presumed he was only joking.
"Can I really?" she asked, "That's going to make you uncomfortable, surely, and you won't be able to go and see your friends." It wasn't that she wasn't grateful for their hospitality but more that she didn't want to inconvenience them more than she already had; George didn't seem to mind.
"Don't worry about it, I haven't heard that anything exciting is happening, and if anyone wants to come and see us, I'm sure they'll find us," he said. Graciously she took him up on his offer and readjusted herself so that her back was against the left hand side of his body.
"Thank you," she said simply, ready to enjoy a comfortable sleep. Only a few moments had passed, however, when suddenly the train ground to a halt. Blearily, Erin opened her eyes to the sounds of commotion further down the train, mixed with driving rain against the window.
"What's going on?" she asked as the lights in the compartment flickered, the temperature continuing to plummet. She reached for a shawl that had fallen from her bag and was drawing it around her shoulders when the compartment door was wrenched open and a blonde haired boy rushed in, visibly frightened. "Draco?" She asked, the twins trying and failing not to at least snicker at his predicament.
"De-dementors!" he yelped and ran back out again. The smiles dropped off the twins' faces immediately, and they both tensed further into their seats.
The air in the compartment had gotten so cold that the window had frosted over and the cries of distress were sounding closer than ever.
"Those things?" George asked, voice hushed.
"Give me the creeps," Fred replied, his voice just as serious.
"Erin?" they both said, turning to the girl who had turned silent. Eyes wide like saucers and skin drained of its golden glow she began to tremble where she sat. Staring fixedly at the door, she held her arms out in a gesture that signalled desperation – George, being sat next to her, grabbed her and held her tight into his chest, trying to get her head into his shoulder to stop her seeing the figure he knew must standing in the doorway. It was more instinctive than anything, when someone was that shocked and by something so vile, you did your very best to protect them no matter who they were. Fred saw it advance towards them, that horrible, black hooded creature, its foul breath fogging and freezing the air; bravely but uselessly he held out his wand. Against George's chest, violent shivers passed through Erin as her mind began to swim with terrifying images: her mother crying, a man with eyes burning like hell, flashes of coloured light. Though physically unharmed, she felt a stab of pain in her arm as if injured, it hurt, it hurt so much... All the while the Dementor was advancing on her and a terrifying, cloying darkness swept over her, she was sinking, falling...
"Leave her alone!" Someone was shaking her shoulder, dragging her out of the darkness. She felt so cold, so alone but still she forced her eyes open – her vision blurred she made out a shock of red hair and behind it, a horrible darkness.
"Oh –" she swore loudly and shrank back against the seat. The closer the beast came, the more the visions fogged her brain, she couldn't think straight, couldn't breathe, but somehow the hand on her arm kept her locked in reality – it was as though she was living a nightmare. Her mother's tear stained face flashed before her eyes again, a long gash down one cheek; her mother, what had her mother said? Happy thoughts, think of a happy thought: Hogwarts, she was going to Hogwarts With only centimetres between her back and the compartment wall, Erin grappled with her wand and pointed it towards the door.
"Expecto Patronum" she gasped, and though her wand arm shook terribly, she focused all her remaining energy onto this one happy thought and a thin silvery spray ejected itself from the end of her wand. This time it was the Dementor who shrank back, though seemingly more out of apathy than fear – there was far easier prey to catch. The cloud of fear dissipated with the last of Erin's energy and she collapsed forward, gasping for breath. Her wand fell to the ground with a clatter, the empty hand reaching feebly towards her bag.
"Get her something to eat...chocolate." George said to his brother who stood on the other side of the compartment – he would have done so himself had he not been using both arms to haul Erin's weight back up into a comfortable position.
"What?" Fred asked but did as he was told, grabbing and unwrapping a chocolate frog before handing it over.
"She's asking for it, I mean I heard her say it," George finally sat Erin upright as she took hold of the frog, biting at it first tentatively and then more hungrily as the sugar flooded her mouth.
"I didn't hear it," Fred replied.
"Well, you are the other side of the carriage..." George kept his arms around Erin while she finished eating, trying to avoid the looks his brother was giving him. He failed in this regard, his cheeks turning a faint shade of pink. "How are you – Fred, stop looking at me like that! How are you feeling, Erin?"
"Better," she replied weakly, "I wouldn't go so far as to say I feel good."
"Whatever you saw, it's over now eh? Why don't you try and get some more sleep?"
Erin nodded and untangled herself from him, stretching back across the seat. George slipped down onto the carriage floor, giving her room to spread her legs out. In the aftermath of the commotion a kind of peace spread across the cabin as the train started to move again. Fred drew the door closed and sat opposite his brother, getting a drink from his own bag.
"You like her," he said jokingly, nodding at the slight blush still on his brother's cheeks.
"She's kind of cute," George shrugged, looking up and out of the window to the leaden sky.
"I'm not deaf," Erin mumbled sleepily – she couldn't see it but George's face had gone about as red as his hair. Fred had to cover his mouth with his hand to stop himself from laughing too much; they decided to wait until Erin was definitely asleep before continuing their conversation.
"Don't you feel like you've met her before?" George asked Fred finally, as if he wasn't sure of the answer himself.
"Can't say I do," Fred replied, "I think I met someone called Erin before, or maybe it was Erica, I don't know. That Dementor's probably made your head a bit funny, they do that."
George felt defiantly that the Dementor had not made his head funny but he knew there would be little point continuing the discussion. It was probably best just to get changed, they couldn't be too far from Hogwarts now and with Erin asleep they didn't have to worry about any possible awkwardness – their own female friends were fine with changing in the same carriage as them, but everyone was different.
As if they knew that they had been thought about, three of the twin's friends came to visit them while Erin was still asleep. They talked about their summers, their experience with the Dementors and oh, who was that asleep in their compartment? There wasn't really enough room for all of them to sit so they soon left, though they made it clear they wanted the twins to introduce them to Erin when they were at school, even if it turned out that she wasn't in their house.
"She's going to make loads of friends," said Fred once they had left, "People even want to meet her when they've only seen her asleep!"
"I still think she's pretty nervous though," said George, "How old do you think she is, fourteen, fifteen? That's an odd time to have to make new friends, and she doesn't have any brothers or sisters either."
"Are you implying I'm not a proper friend?" Fred mimed being heartbroken, making George laugh.
"I'm implying that if you don't have friends, family are useful. Now stop being a prick, you'll wake Erin up."
Erin awoke about half an hour later to the sight of the twins in their full Hogwarts regalia.
"Is it time to get changed?" she asked, stretching as she sat up. The fact that they were dressed must mean they were nearing their destination which made her feel a little nervous, but still she forced a smile.
"Yes, it is. Do you want us to go outside while you change?" George asked her, motioning to the door.
"No, it's fine," she replied as she reached into her bag for her clothes – they were neatly folded at the bottom. "As long as you shut the compartment blind, I mean you've already seen my underwear but I don't fancy everyone else seeing it."
George pulled the blind, and during the next few minutes that it took Erin to get out of her present outfit engaged himself in a non-verbal conversation with his brother: should they tell her that they hadn't actually seen her underwear and had just been teasing, or would that make things more awkward? After several exchanges of facial expressions and hand gestures, they decided there wasn't really a way to solve it.
"So, how do you know Malfoy?" George asked as Erin began to redress herself – he was taking the high road of not looking directly at her. Fred? Not so much.
"Oh, Draco?" she responded, now rummaging in her bag for a hair brush. "He's a family friend so I've known him from birth, can't say I get on with him that well but I don't dislike him. His family do my head in sometimes but they're family, that's what they do."
"You're the same age as him then, third year?" Fred asked, opening the blind now that she was dressed.
"No, I'm a year older than he is," Erin replied, "So that makes me a fourth year. Well, kind of – apparently I have to sit some third year classes this term as my...old school system doesn't quite match up to yours, but all being well I should be a fourth year after Christmas."
"That's the same year as our friend Katie," George said kindly, "She came in when you were asleep, she says she wants to meet you actually, she thought you looked friendly."
"When I was asleep?" Erin could hardly believe it, perhaps she wouldn't find making friends so hard after all. It was something that she was cautious about, there were things she wasn't quite prepared to open up to other people about and she worried that they'd get in the way, either through her not telling people and being distant or them finding out and not wanting to know her.
"Yeah, and two of our other friends want to meet you too, they're in our year – fifth year." So the twins were a year older than her, she had thought they looked a bit older.
"We were wondering actually if you know what house you're going to be in?" George asked, "I mean, I know you're new but have they told you?"
"No, they haven't told me actually," Erin replied, "I think I have to get sorted, put a hat on my head or something. That's right, isn't it?"
"With all the first years? That's harsh," said Fred, "In front of everyone at dinner?"
"I don't know, is that how they do it?"
The twins looked at each other and then both at Erin; her chest started to flutter a little with nerves but she held her head high.
"Which house are you two in?" she asked, trying to move the conversation away from her sorting, "I presume you're in the same one."
"We're in Gryffindor, best house there is!" they announced proudly. Erin's face lit up into a smile they hadn't seen throughout the journey so far.
"My mum was in Gryffindor!" She said with just as much enthusiasm, "My uncle was in Ravenclaw, but my mum was in Gryffindor."
"There you go, that's got to count for something," George said, in a way it was good to see her happy, especially after how the Dementor had affected her, "Maybe the hat will bear that in mind when it sorts you. Mind, you know that means you'll have to put up with us on a regular basis?"
Erin just smiled as she reclined back into her seat, holding her bag on her lap. She didn't want to get her hopes up too much, there were four houses after all that the hat could choose from, but she was really beginning to feel that Gryffindor might be a home for her. Her mother had loved it even though it hadn't been her first choice, so surely as she wanted to be there she was set to have an even better time. If she got there, that was.
"Erin, I hate to point this out but you did realise you're not wearing any socks, didn't you?" Fred asked out of the blue. Erin looked down at her bare legs and then back up at him.
"Do I have to wear socks? I didn't pack any in this bag, I didn't think it was obligatory," she said. She stood up and slipped her bag back onto her shoulders as Fred told her that he was pretty certain she had to wear socks,
"And anyway, you'll freeze if you don't, the weather doesn't get any better from here on up."
"Well then, do you know anybody who would have a pair of socks I could borrow for the moment?" she asked, "I really have no idea where my trunk's been stored or I'd find a pair of my own."
"Now, who do we know like that..." The twins replied in an almost devilish manner. Erin began to hope that what they found amusing was who they were inflicting her upon and not the other way round, but she stopped herself mid-thought – stop expecting the worst of people, she told herself. Instead, she listened patiently while they told her how to find the girl: look for a dark haired boy with glasses sitting with either of the twins' younger siblings, the girl they were looking for was more than likely to be sat with them.
"Thank you for letting me sit with you," she told them as she made her way out into the corridor. "I suppose I won't make it back here before we arrive, but I'll see you at dinner? Even if I'm not in your house, I won't forget how kind you've been to me, and I have a feeling that whichever house I'm in, I won't be able to escape your mayhem completely."
"That's the spirit, see you later!" they said as they waved her goodbye.
Erin was about three carriages down the train and beginning to give up hope when she finally found who she was looking for. She knocked on the door shyly, studying the faces inside just to make sure she had the right group. A girl with bushy hair stood up from Erin's blind spot and pulled the door half open.
"Hello, can I help you?" she asked, her tone not bossy as such but confident and slightly cautious.
"Well, yes actually," Erin replied, extending her hand in a greeting, "Are you Miss Granger? I was sharing a compartment with Fred and George Weasley and they told me to come and find you."
"I don't think I've seen you before," the girl replied as she shook her hand.
"No, you won't have – I'm new," said Erin. Her heart was pounding at meeting new people but she tried to stay as calm as possible. "My name's Erin, Erin Marwell."
From behind the girl a new voice spoke:
"Let her in already, Hermione, she's probably traumatised if she's had to sit with Fred and George!"
Hermione stepped aside, letting Erin in – there was a gleam in her eye that meant her brain was ticking over something, but Erin chose to ignore it. She saw that it was the red haired boy who must have spoken and smiled at him.
"Oh, you must be Ronald," she said, "Your brothers told me you might be here. Oh, and don't worry, they haven't traumatised me – they were actually very nice."
Ron first looked amazed at the fact that someone considered his brothers to be 'very nice', then cringed at the thought of what they may have told her about him, mumbling something to the effect that could she please call him Ron?
"You do realise you don't have any socks on, don't you?" Hermione asked, and looked to be on the verge of explaining why exactly this was against the rules before Ron gave her a nudge. "I'm sorry, what was it you came here for anyway?"
"That's it, actually," Erin replied, coming over quite shy to say she was only asking to borrow a pair of socks, "I didn't realise that we had to wear socks all the time, so I packed them all in my trunk. I know, I know, why don't I just get them out of my trunk? Well, the thing is that I don't know where it is, I had to run back to pay my taxi driver and then the conductors packed my trunk on board before I got here..." She trailed off here, aware that her mouth was running away with her. "Anyway, I don't have any socks and the twins thought you might have a spare pair. Would it be okay if I could borrow them, just until we get to school?"
"I don't see why not," Hermione said as she sorted through her belongings. It did not seem to faze her that she was considered the kind of person liable to carry a spare pair of socks with them, or at least be organised enough to never be left without. "Did you say you came to the station by taxi? Are your parents muggles?"
"Hermione, you do not just ask people that!" Ron spluttered, but Erin gave him a gentle nod to show that she didn't mind answering. She sat down on the seat next to Hermione and slipped off her shoes, ready for the socks.
"I'm actually a pureblood, though I take it you must be a muggle born seeing as you know what a taxi is," she said, taking Hermione's spare socks gratefully, "I flew to London from near where I live in Germany and then it was easier to get a taxi than to drag my trunk through the underground, I'm sure you can understand."
Hermione seemed a little annoyed at being presumed to be a muggle born, even though she was one, instead of just being intelligent. Ron however seemed to find all this information fascinating.
"Do Fred and George know you came on a plane thing?" He asked with a delighted smile, "My dad would love to hear about it, he loves that sort of thing, all that muggle stuff, he's dead into it."
Erin started to feel a bit awkward, what with Ron gushing over her on one hand and Hermione cooling to her on the other. She turned instead to the third member of the carriage, a dark haired boy sat in the corner who thus far hadn't said a word. She had the intention of asking whether he was a pureblood too, as she understood Ron to be, but instead found herself asking a different question given his pallid complexion,
"Is he okay?"
The boy looked up, a little disgruntled, as if acknowledging Erin's presence for the first time.
"I'm fine" he told her a little tersely, shrugging his shoulders.
"You don't look fine," she told him in honest terms, "You look a mess. Do you have any chocolate you could eat?"
"I already gave him some chocolate" an older voice informed her back from the still open doorway. There was a momentary silence as Erin turned to face the speaker. Their eyes met and a smile split across her face as she stood up to greet the sandy haired man she saw.
"Professor Lupin!" she said enthusiastically, "I didn't think I'd get to see you until we arrived at the school – how are you?"
The teacher's eyes seemed bright against his drawn complexion, his worn and crumpled features softening as he returned the girl's smile.
"I'm wearing up as well as ever," he replied, ushering Erin back into her seat so that he could join them fully in their compartment. "How are you? You must be absolutely exhausted if you've been travelling all the way from your mother's house, and I bet you're nervous about starting school."
Erin bowed her head in a self-effacing manner, wishing to divert some attention from herself.
"I'm fine," she insisted, "I am tired, like you said, but I've had a pretty good journey and I've met some nice people – I was sat with Ron's brothers, and now Hermione and Ron and..." She turned to the boy in the corner, who still hadn't said a word. "I'm sorry, I didn't catch your name?"
"I'm Harry," he said simply.
"Potter," Lupin added. Erin looked first to Harry, then to their Professor and then back again.
"Oh, of course you are!" She said, "It's nice to meet you Harry."
To avoid the looks she was receiving for both Harry and Hermione, Erin unzipped her bag and started looking through it. They weren't looking at her in an unpleasant manner, they were just inquisitive and right now she didn't feel like undergoing an inquisition.
"Ah," though Erin couldn't see it, Lupin's face clouded over as a thought crossed his mind. He looked solemnly from Harry to Erin as though just remembering some connection. "Erin, if I might ask - How were the dementors for you? Harry here took a turn for the worse."
Erin raised her head to reply with flushed cheeks – the twins had seen enough without anyone else knowing; Harry felt the same judging by the expression on his face.
"It was...kind of hard, yeah," she said quietly, "Mum told me something to do, I mean I don't think I did it right, but they went away, and I ate some chocolate. Ron's brothers were very kind too."
Ron, who had found it unbelievable enough that anyone could consider his brothers 'nice' now seemed awestruck that the words 'very kind' could appear in a sentence about them – all they ever did was tease him. Professor Lupin however seemed glad of this news and put a hand on Erin's shoulder as he stood up to leave.
"I'm glad you're okay, keep making new friends and you'll be fine," he said, "I'm looking forward to meeting these brothers of yours, Ron, they sound like good sports."
"They're trouble makers!" Ron burst out, with Hermione looking like she was about to say the same thing.
"Ah well, even better," Lupin replied with a sly smile, "except you didn't hear that from me, as a teacher. Speaking of which, I must be off; I have to do another tour of the train before we reach the station."
"Professor, before you go," said Erin. She held out a small wooden box towards the teacher. "It's just a little present from my mum; she wanted to congratulate you on your new job."
There was a slight twinkle in Lupin's eye as he accepted and opened the box – "Turkish Delight, my favourite!" he told them before saying his goodbyes.
"How does your mother know Professor Lupin?" Hermione asked Erin once the man in question had left. Something had flagged up in her mind when she heard the pair speaking, but she couldn't quite put her finger on it.
"They were in the same house at school," Erin told her, "They were pretty good friends, everyone used to think they were dating. Not that they ever were of course!" She delivered this last statement as if it were the most obvious thing in the world. "They don't see each other so much anymore but they've keep in touch."
"What house are you going to be in?" Hermione asked Erin, "Do you know?"
"I don't know, actually," Erin replied. She was feeling a little more comfortable discussing the situation since she had already gone through it with Fred and George. "Are you three all in Gryffindor?"
"Yeah, we are" said Harry – he seemed to be feeling a little more talkative, "It sounds like everyone you've met so far has been in Gryffindor."
"Actually, I did see Draco Malfoy earlier; he's in Slytherin. Do you know him?" All three Gryffindor students turned to look at Erin – did they know him? "What? What did I say?"
"He's in our year," Hermione informed her, "I can't say we get on with him very well, though."
"That's because he's a-"
"Ron!" Hermione snapped before he could put his foot in his mouth.
"How do you know him, Erin?" Harry asked. Erin felt rather foolish for having mentioned it, people did seem to either love or loathe the Malfoys, she understood that, but she had only been trying to answer a question.
"The Malfoys are family friends of ours," she explained, "My uncle is the same age as Draco's mother and when they were growing up they lived quite close to each other. Lucius, Draco's father, is a friend of my father's so we're linked in that way too – you know what pureblood families are like!" By this, of course, Erin was referring to fact that most pureblooded families were linked to each other in some way, if not related. "Oh, you're not a pureblood, are you Harry?"
"No, I'm a half blood" he replied, slightly taken aback. Before he could ask how she knew, they found the train pulling into Hogsmeade station.
"It was nice meeting you," Erin said as they all got ready to disembark, "Maybe I'll see you at dinner."
"That Erin confuses me," Ron grumbled as he, Harry and Hermione made it out onto the platform, "She didn't seem like the kind of girl to be friends with Malfoy, I wonder if Fred and George knew?"
Hermione gave him a withering look.
"Ron, Erin never said she was friends with Malfoy, only that their families were friends," she said, "but you are right, there is something confusing about her..."
In the Great Hall, Ron sat alone at the Gryffindor table, Harry and Hermione having left him for a meeting with Professor McGonagall – their head of house. Looking down the table he saw his two older brothers with their usual group of friends; somehow he had been expecting to see Erin there, didn't she say she was going to be in their house? He couldn't remember - maybe he was going mad and imagining that, maybe that was what Dementors did to you.
The school anthem began to play and he was obliged to sing several verses as a nervous line of first years filed into the room, too anxious even to notice the great night sky above them. Somewhere towards the middle of the queue, one figure stood head and shoulders above the rest, her fudgey coloured hair draping down between her shoulder blades.
"She's getting sorted?" Ron hissed, then realised his best friends weren't there to comment.
One by one the newcomers stepped forward, taking it in turns to wear the ever witty sorting hat. Names were called and houses declared – a cheer here, a round of applause there; some children running up to their brothers and sisters in joy, others looking completely lost. As the queue grew shorter, Erin moved her way towards the sorting hat. She kept her head held high, trying to focus on the wall in front of her instead of the suspicious tables to either side. Four years she'd waited for this, four years. And none of them knew, they thought she was a transfer student – where from?
Taking time to breathe, she looked briefly at the tables to either side of her. Yellow directly to her left and green behind them – a flash of blonde hair and some movement caught her eye before she turned to the right. Red this side, and blue behind them; There was a verbal encouragement from the red table. Though she couldn't see who it had come from, just the thought that someone was rooting for her gave her the reassurance to step up onto the platform.
She sat awkwardly on the stool (it being made for people much shorter than herself). Closing her eyes as the battered old hat was placed upon her head.
"Someone doesn't know where she wants to be," the hat whispered in her ear. She gripped her hands tighter against the rim of the seat. Outside the hat she could hear a table of Slytherins baying for her, presumably led by Malfoy who was presumably angered by the earlier Gryffindor-led encouragement.
"They want you..." the hat tempted. Honestly, she wanted to rip the stupid thing off her head. "And so do they..." An eruption of noise from her other side showed that the Gryffindors were giving as good as they got – why was everyone so eager for her? They didn't know her.
"Please, just wherever you think's best for me," she pleaded, eyes shut tighter in anticipation.
"Oh, well seeing as you asked nicely...Normally people put up more of a fight," Erin squirmed slightly, wondering how the hat would decide for her. "Gryffindor!" it announced to the crowd.
There was a silence as Erin stood and removed the hat; itself bemoaning the fact that everyone wanted to hurt it. The Slytherin table looked at her with a mixture of shock and contempt – there seemed some pause at the Gryffindor table too, as if they were shocked that they had actually 'won'. The Ravenclaw and Hufflepuff tables just looked more bemused as to what was actually going on. Erin worried for a moment that her new house had decided that they didn't want her, but her fears were quashed as a ripple of excitement passed through the ranks of students.
"Welcome to Gryffindor!" somebody shouted and the whole table erupted into applause as she made her way down to the table; she chose to sit with the twins as they were the only faces she recognized.
"Like mother like daughter," Fred said to her as she sat down.
"You don't know how right you are," she said after a moment. Feeling her eyes welling up, she dabbed at them with her sleeve and tried not to cry any more. "Can someone pass the bread, please?"
"Hey now, it's not that much of a disaster you've been placed with us," George teased her as he handed over the bread basket, trying to make light of the fact that she was crying – Erin seemed to miss this intonation.
"It's not, I'm not-" she mumbled awkwardly, hanging her head before feeling a small jab in the ribs.
"I was joking," said George, "Here, let me introduce you to everyone..."
Harry and Hermione joined Ron shortly after the sorting had finished.
"Are you alright, Ron?" Hermione asked her friend, seeing that he looked bewildered to say the least. Ron looked between them both, then down the table to Erin, unable to articulate what he wanted to say.
"She, they...you had to miss it didn't you?"
Harry looked bemused and started tucking into his dinner, asking the fatal question of:
"Had to miss what?"
"That Erin girl!" Ron huffed. "She got sorted with the first years; she's down there with Fred and George."
Hermione thought that little of Ron's statement that she barely moved her eyes from her dinner as she replied to him.
"Ron, she did say that she would be sorted, you know. Don't you ever listen?"
"When did she say that?" Ron retorted.
"On the train," said Harry, "She said she didn't know what House she was going to be in – that's practically the same thing."
Ron clearly thought that they were not the same thing, but as no-one seemed willing to talk about it, he turned the conversation back to more general terms. Around him, other people seemed to be taking the same path, with the level of chatter rising as the meal drew to its natural conclusion.
Over at the Slytherin table, Draco Malfoy had begun a series of impressions of Harry fainting on the train, much to the amusement of his housemates and Harry's own annoyance. Hermione and Ron tried to distract him rather unsuccessfully before a new distraction in the form of the Weasley twins came to their rescue.
"Alright Harry?" they asked, taking the seats opposite their brother and his friends. Without asking, Fred reached for a half eaten bread roll that lay on Ron's plate and began eating it.
"You two must be happy," Ron said, snatching back his roll, "Having your new friend in Gryffindor."
"I don't like your tone of voice there," said George, "What's this new friend lark about?"
"You know what – Erin," said Ron.
Fred shrugged at this, deciding that it wasn't worth attempting to steal the roll again.
"We get that, but why the 'new friend' business? Just because we were kind enough to let her sit with us."
"She thinks you're nice, and kind," Ron insisted.
"Aren't we?" asked Fred, before George cut in,
"Wait, she said that about us?"
"Yeah," said Ron moodily, "Something about a dementor and you being very kind, that's what she said."
"What happened, actually?" Harry asked. With the Slytherin crowd mocking his own shortcomings before the dementor, he was intrigued to learn what had happened to Erin. Unfortunately for his curiosity, he found George to be wagging a finger at him.
"Now now Harry, if Erin hasn't told you then I don't think it's our place to tell you," he said, "Ron, why is all this getting your panties in such a bunch?"
Ron did not take kindly to being told his panties were in a bunch about anything, but Hermione stepped in before he could embarrass himself further.
"Ron's annoyed because he wasn't listening when Erin said she was going to be sorted, and he feels like we're all conspiring against him," she said.
"Look, will everyone just stop picking on me?" Ron said desperately. Fred seemed to take pity on his brother as a cheeky smile crept across his face.
"Okay, George fancies Erin," he said.
"I what?" his twin retorted, "Just because Ron said not to pick on him doesn't mean you have to pick on me!" Despite his protestations however, there was the faintest hint of a blush beneath his freckles.
"You so do," said Fred. He leant in close to Harry and Ron, adding quietly, "plus, he's seen her in her underwear already."
"Fred! You were there too!"
"Oh, will you four grow up?" Hermione moaned, standing up from the table, "I'm going to talk to Lavender."
There was a brief pause in the conversation as Hermione left; Harry kept nudging Ron, whose jaw was somewhere around the floor. Did they just say what he thought they said, did they mean it?
"Hang on, you what?" He asked.
"Long story" the twins replied together, striking up the pose of 'that's for us to know and you to find out'.
"It was kind of our fault," George added, semi-apologetically.
"But we're not complaining!" Fred grinned.
"Where is she? I mean, who have you left her with?" Harry asked conversationally, with Ron at the same time blurting out "What colour?" his face still turned to his brothers in disbelief.
"Erin's down there talking to Angelina," George motioned down the table, choosing to ignore Ron's question. "Apparently their cousins are dating or engaged or something, small world hey?"
"As for you, you Ronald Weasley," Fred replied once George had finished. "They're blue with white bits, bet you a chocolate frog if you don't believe us, but you've got no chance of finding out"
Ron ignored the insult and accepted the challenge, his mind ticking over how he was ever going to know the truth.
"Do I want to know what he's scheming about?" Erin asked from behind the twins. They both jumped about a mile in the air, causing Erin to laugh so hard she had to sit down on the bench. "I'll take that as a no! Don't look so guilty!"
Ron gave an almighty yawn as Erin sat herself properly on the bench.
"I know how you feel," she said with a stretch, "I'm pretty much too tired to tell which way is up at the moment!" She looked briefly from Harry to Ron, "Oh, isn't Hermione with you? I wanted to thank her for lending me her socks."
"She's gone to talk to her other friends," said Harry, omitting the fact that Hermione had left due to the nature of their previous conversation. "I'm sure you'll be able to find her once we get up to the tower."
The trek up to her new house seemed to Erin to take an hour, or at least a very, very long time. Up stairs and down corridors she followed the heaving crowd of Gryffindors until finally the Fat Lady came into view. They all stopped short of the painting itself, waiting for someone to turn up with the new term's password.
"Coming through, Head Boy, let me pass!" A bossy voice ordered from behind Erin. In fact, directly behind Erin – so directly behind that its owner barged her in the shoulder and back as he made his way past. The force of the shove caused Erin to wobble, nearly back down the last few steps in fact if it hadn't been for one of her housemates catching her by the arm.
"Watch where you're going Percy, you're not important enough to be able to walk through people!" Fred's voice called from a few rows back. Percy said nothing, merely stuck his nose in the air as he carried on to the front of the crowd.
"The password's 'Fortuna Major'," he finally addressed them all. Erin swore he was looking deliberately past her, as if she didn't exist. One by one the new first years passed through the portrait, the Fat Lady patiently putting up with the whole spectacle, opening and closing between each student then staying open as the rest of her charges piled in.
"Erin Marwell?" one of the prefects called as the girl in question was looking around the common room in amazement. Everyone greeting each other, swapping stories with those they hadn't seen all summer – it was more of a family than she'd seen in a long time. It was one thing to hear stories of the place from your mother, but to be there yourself was something entirely different.
"Here!" Erin replied over the buzz of the crowd. In her haste, she nearly tripped over a coffee table as she made her way to the girl who had called her name.
"It's pretty impressive, isn't it?" The prefect commented, holding out her hand for Erin to shake. "I'm Jenny; it's lovely to have you here." The smile on her face made it clear she had been briefed on Erin's arrival – Erin accepted the hand accordingly. "Fourth year dormitory is just up these stairs behind me, and it's the first door on your right," Erin made a mental note of this, shifting the weight of her bag against her back. "You're sharing with two other girls, there's a third in your year but there was a gap in a different dorm so she asked to move with her friends – yeah, you're a tiny year."
Erin forced a smile for Jenny – the girl was obviously one who had to explain everything, and though this was grating on Erin's tired nerves, she knew there was no harm in the action itself.
"Have I got time to have a bath? I've been travelling all day..." She asked Jenny, looking towards a clock on the far wall of the common room. Jenny paused for a minute, weighing up with options.
"Well, it's nine now and I want everyone back in by ten, so there's time," she told Erin. "But I've got to make sure the first years are all okay, so you'll have to find someone else to show you where the bathroom is?"
Erin nodded, making her way towards the stairs.
"Yeah, that's fine, thanks Jenny"
"No problem!" Jenny replied, happily getting back to her duties.
Walking up the stairs to her new room, Erin didn't quite know what to expect. When she arrived through the panelled door, she wasn't sure whether the sight that greeted her was what she had expected or not. The room itself was semi-circular due to its tower location, with windows looking out over the mismatched tiles of the school's roof. Three beds took prominent position in the room - if you thought of it like a clock, then one would be at ten o'clock, one at twelve and one at two. With no trace of her aforementioned roommates, Erin grabbed her trunk from where it had been left in the centre of the room and dragged it over to the two o'clock bed, furthest from the largest of the windows.
Some minutes later she had unpacked the necessities from her trunk and was in the process of zipping up her wash bag when she heard the door handle turn behind her.
"Excuse me, are you Erin?" a voice asked her back and she turned around to see two girls stood side by side in the doorway. One of them was tall with long, blonde hair draping down to her waist, the other only slightly less tall with curled dark hair and a tanned complexion.
"You'd be kind of worried if I wasn't," Erin replied with a smile, trying to brewak the ice with a joke. Before stepping up to greet them, she took the time to tie her hair up into a knot on her head, "Yeah, I'm Erin, it's nice to meet you."
"It's really nice to have a new roommate," the darker of the two girls enthused, "I mean we've got Katie but she doesn't sleep with us, and we're always outnumbered in classes! Anyway, my name's Carmen and this is Tallulah," she said, indicating to her blonde haired friend.
"You can call me Lou," Tallulah informed Erin, giving her a grin that revealed a row of silver braces. Erin smiled back and watched as the girl moved her own trunk to the centre bed, leaving Carmen with the one nearest the window. Something about the positioning of the room triggered something in her head.
"Carmen, I don't mean to sound weird, but do you normally sleep in that bed?" She asked, walking over to look out of the window. Carmen looked like she did find this question weird, but answered anyway.
"Yes, I do. Lou doesn't like it because if you crane your neck out far enough you can see up to one of the boys' dorms – she's kind of shy and doesn't like the idea that, if they were bothered enough, the boys could look back into our dorm."
Lou went to make some appeal against this statement, but Erin turned and gave her a sympathetic smile,
"Everyone's different, Lou," she said.
"Why do you ask?" said Carmen.
"It's nothing..." Erin said shyly, "I just think this room used to be my mum's room – she told me what you said, about the windows."
By now, all three girls were sat on Carmen's bed, Erin clutching a clean pair of socks and her wash bag ready for her bath.
"That's so cool that your mum was in Gryffindor," Lou said, the tone in her voice showing that she genuinely found it exciting, "Both of mine were in Hufflepuff. Were your parents prefects?"
"Alright, alright," moaned Carmen before Erin could reply, "Quit the wizarding love-in, some of us didn't have either parent come here!"
"Oh, sorry Carmen," Lou said, "We still love you just as much! It doesn't matter where you come from..."
Carmen responded by huffily sorting things in her bedside drawer – Lou looked a little bit hurt, but not surprised.
"Uhm, Lou?" said Erin, "Would you mind showing me where Hermione Granger's dormitory is? I need to return something to her."
Lou looked momentarily to Carmen for assurance before she got up and led Erin out of the room. She closed to door softly behind her and walked a little further up the stairs, beckoning her new roommate to follow her.
"I'm sorry about Carmen," she said, "She's a muggle-born, and she tends to get a little edgy around purebloods..."
"It's fine, don't worry," Erin told her, "Thank you for letting me know it's not just me who's offended her – is this Hermione's room?"
"I think so," said Lou, "If not, it's definitely the next door up." She stopped and drew breath, taking a moment before lowering her voice and adding, "I'll...have a word with Carmen, you seem really nice and I don't want you two to get off on the wrong foot."
Erin thanked her for her consideration – it obviously took Lou some effort to go against anything Carmen said – and bade her farewell as she knocked on the dormitory door.
"Is Hermione there?" she asked and waited. As the seconds passed by she got more nervous, but after about a minute Hermione appeared, poking her head out of a gap in the door she held ajar.
"Oh, hello Erin," she said, "Sorry, I didn't recognize your voice."
"That's fine Hermione, I brought you a pair of my socks, to make up for the ones I borrowed," Erin told her. She held out the socks, which Hermione took before disappearing back into the dorm without a word. Erin had been hoping to ask Hermione to show her where she could find the bathroom, but obviously she was busy. As she turned to go back down the stairs, the door opened again and Hermione came all the way out into the corridor, shutting the door behind her.
"Did you need me to show you anything else? I'm already unpacked so I'm free to show you around."
Erin stopped on the stairs and turned back around to face Hermione,
"Would you really?" she asked, genuinely touched by the offer, "I wouldn't want to impose – I don't mean to sound rude but I got the feeling I didn't make a good impression on you earlier..."
"Don't worry about that, it's the first day back, everyone is always either hyper, or tired and stressed," said Hermione, "And it's not that you've offended me; I just feel like I should be able to place who you are, and I can't just yet."
"Hermione – you seem smart," Erin said as they started walking back down the stairs, "I assure you, if anyone manages to place me, I have a feeling it will be you."
Hermione seemed somewhat satisfied with this remark. To anyone else, Erin wouldn't have mentioned that there was anything even vaguely suspicious about her character, but as she had come to the conclusion that Hermione would figure it out whether she acknowledged it or not, she felt that admitting this fact would at least keep her in on whatever was discovered.
"I take it you want to go to the bathroom?" Hermione asked, motioning to Erin's wash bag. Erin indicated that that was the case and they made their way through the common room and out into the corridors.
The bathroom to which Hermione led Erin was suitably impressive, and certainly more than adequate for a bath after a long day's travelling. She found herself a place to sit at the base of a stone pillar whilst Erin unpacked her wash bag at the side of one of the baths.
"Erin, if I were looking to place you, what might be a good place to start?" she asked after a moment or two.
"Probably my surname," Erin replied, undressing herself as she began to run the bath. "Oh, you don't mind do you?" she queried, indicating the undressing.
"No," Hermione told her, noting that the other girl's underwear was in fact 'blue with white bits', as the twins had said. Was it just a lucky guess on their part, or had they really seen it first hand? "Erin," she started again, "did Fred and George Weasley really see you in your underwear?"
Erin herself snorted with laughter.
"So that's what it was Ron looked flustered about when I found them at dinner!" she sighed, "But yes they did Hermione. You can't blame them, it was an accident – something to do with some prank product they were working on, and it's not as if they'll tell anyone," Hermione looked incredulous at this. "Okay, they're boys, they'll tell everyone, but nobody knows me yet so it's fine!" She dipped her hand into the bath water to see how hot it was getting – stone cold. "Hermione, do these baths ever warm up?"
"Not especially," Hermione replied. "I know Fred and George have been nice to you so far, but you ought to know that they can be trouble."
Erin pondered this over while she got into the bath – tepid as it was, it still felt good after everything she'd been through that day.
"Thanks for the warning, but I'm sure I'll be fine," she said, laying herself back. "If I seem shy, I'm not normally like this, it's just, being new and all...Besides, I wouldn't be my mother's daughter if I didn't find myself in a spot of trouble now and then."
"You make that sound like a good thing," said Hermione. Erin gave her a look which simply replied 'Isn't it?'. Hermione continued nonetheless as her companion started to wash herself, "You said I might start with your surname, did you mean I might have known your father?"
"Apparently some people do," said Erin simply, "you'd be better off looking in a book though, Luther Marwell, you're only going to get a biased answer from me – and I don't mean in a good way."
Hermione seemed to ponder this for a while as Erin finished her bath and got dressed into her pyjamas – a pair of blue silk bottoms with a white cotton vest.
"Did your father attend Hogwarts?" she asked as they began to walk back to the tower.
"No, he didn't," Erin replied, "So you won't find any trophies with his name on, sorry."
"Your mother-?" Hermione was cut off by Erin laughing, which seemed to be her standby response to most things.
"Hermione, if you can find a trophy with my mother's name on, I'd be more than surprised – she wasn't really the academic kind!" She said, then paused before adding, "I kid, she was very talented at Transfiguration, so if there's a prize for that, you're more than welcome to go looking. I won't tell you her name though, that would make your job too easy."
Hermione's eyes seemed to glimmer slightly, though it could have been the lamplight that greeted their arrival at the Fat Lady. This Erin girl, it was as if she had something that needed knowing but she didn't want to tell herself, that she understood that Hermione would be able and willing to find out, and that she trusted her to do so.
"Erin, before we go in...Why do you trust me?"
Erin paused, one foot through the portrait hole.
"Because I believe that you wouldn't tell anyone what you found out about another person, if you believed it would hurt them or put them at risk," she said, stepping fully through.
Once inside, Erin and Hermione found the common room nearly empty with Harry, Ron and one of the Weasley twins the only people still about.
"George?" Erin asked sleepily. She was fairly certain it was him, but she couldn't be too sure in the dim firelight. Hermione left to join her friends as the twin came running over, having just noticed the pair entering the room.
"I think I broke it!" George apologized quickly. In his hand he held out Erin's lifeless watch, which she took with a gentle smile.
"It's okay," she soothed, "I don't think anything electric-"
"Electronic" Hermione corrected from the other side of the room.
"Anything electronic works here. Does she always correct people's speech?" she whispered to George, who nodded.
"Can you fix it?" he asked, watching as she slid her nail around the watch's back panel, "Ron didn't believe me about all the stuff it could do, and when I tried to show him it wouldn't do anything."
With a click a round plastic disk popped off the back of the watch and Erin scooped out the battery.
"I can make it work again, don't you worry" she told him. She pulled her wand out of the wash-kit she had taken to the bathroom (it had been in her robe pocket before that) and poked at the little battery, which to George looked almost like a little silver coin. It was at this point that he noticed for the first time that she was in fact in her pyjamas.
"Oh I'm sorry!" he blurted, but Erin just laughed. She put the battery back in the watch and waited for it to register.
"It's fine," she assured him, "If I minded people seeing me in my pyjamas I wouldn't have walked all the way back from the bathroom wearing them." Without waiting for George to respond, Erin clipped the watch back around his wrist. "You can keep it if you want, give me a shout again if it stops working."
"Really? Thank-you!" George said, "I can go and show Ron now."
Erin smiled at him then gave a great yawn.
"I'm sure he'll like it," she said, "If you'll excuse me, I'm off to bed, goodnight everyone." With one arm she gave George a half hug around the waist and waved at the other three before heading up the stairs to her dormitory.
"She likes you," Ron teased his elder brother once he felt Erin was far enough out of earshot.
"Ron!" Hermione complained. "Boys and girls can just be friends you know. Besides, Erin told me that she's been on her own with her mum all summer, so she's probably just glad for the company."
George remained silent as he cycled through the watch's functions, figuring out which one his younger sibling would find most interesting.
"Do you like her?" Ron prompted as Harry stepped in to help George with the muggle technology – his cousin Dudley had a watch very similar in design, if not in quite the same condition; he had a habit of throwing it at the wall if it didn't do what he wanted. George shrugged at the question, deciding that the stopwatch was the coolest feature.
"I guess?" He replied, holding out the watch for Ron to see. "Don't really know her, do I? But... I can't tell if Fred either likes her too, or doesn't even like her like, as a friend and is just playing with her."
"But if you were to like her..." Hermione encouraged, finding the whole situation very strange. What was so impressive about this new girl? She wasn't exactly vastly prettier than anyone else Hermione knew, and she didn't seem to have any real intellectual merit.
"It's a twin thing," George shrugged again, "If Fred likes her, I can't, and if he doesn't then I still can't. He's the older twin so that's just how it works."
"So, Hermione – if you said Erin was with her mum all summer, does that mean she doesn't have any brothers or sisters?" Ron asked. To him, not having any wasn't a conceivable thought.
"Not that she mentioned to me," Hermione replied. "Just her and her mother at home most of the time, but she did mention her father too."
"Erin showed me a picture of her mum when we were on the train," George chipped in, "She's quite good looking actually, for someone's mum. Ron, you know the seeker Holyhead Harpies had last season? A bit like her, but with black hair."
Ron whistled incredulously.
"If her mum looks like that, I can see why that old teacher had the hots for her!"
"Ron, Erin said that her mother and Professor Lupin never dated, people just thought that they did," Hermione reminded him.
"Thought he had the hots for her, did have the hots for her – what's the difference?" Ron replied with a shrug.
"Bit of a difference, actually," George said, and then without further words, snatched the watch back from his brother. "Well I'm off to bed, don't stay up too late."
"What got into him?" Ron asked after they'd heard the slam of a dormitory door. "'Don't stay up too late'? He sounds like he's turning into mum."
"Oh, I don't know Ronald," Hermione said sarcastically, "If you can't figure it out then I won't be the one to tell you."
"Hermione, stop being a know-it-all," Ron told her. Hermione seemingly took offense to this and stood up to leave, with Ron calling after her- "Wait, what colour was her underwear though?"
"Blue with white bits, just like your brothers said," Hermione replied, already halfway towards the stairs. "So, I think that means you lost the bet. Goodnight Harry"
"Why didn't she say goodnight to me?" Ron asked his friend, deeply offended by the insult. Harry laughed at this, which infuriated Ron further.
"Ron," he said, putting a hand on his shoulder, "Not only do you know nothing about girls, you know nothing about anything to do with girls."
Ron's face at this point was set into a definite sulk.
"Come on," Harry encouraged, "Let's get to bed before you insult anyone else"
"You're the only one here!" Ron protested as they climbed the stairs.
"Exactly my point" said Harry.