Authors note: So this a story I came up with when I wondered what it would be like having students from all houses being best friends. I'm not entirely sure where I'm going with it or when it'll finish, I'm thinking either when my main characters graduate Hogwarts or when the war ends. I guess it'll depend on the response I get from you readers!

Additional note: I'm trying to stick(ish) to canon and the wizard timeline, but the muggle one is completely out of it. For example, the first chapter mentions Google even though Google wasn't founded until 1998 (and this story starts in 1994). So please keep this in mind when reading. I guess all that's left to say is I hope you enjoy the story and please review if you have anything to say (it helps more than you think).

Cleo:

"How dare they do that to the muggles!"

"I know, the dark mark was projected in the sky after. It was horrible."

Silence filled the compartment after Penny finished her experience at the quidditch world cup final. As a muggleborn, I spent the past summer with my family without magic. My only connection to the magical world had been through the letters that my three best friends (Penny, Emephia and Ellie) had sent me. Penny had mentioned the attack on muggles at the world cup in writing, but this was the first time that I had heard the whole story.

Emephia and Ellie, who grew up in the magical world, had also not been at the match between Bulgaria and Ireland. They knew more about the incident than I did, due to the daily prophet, but were as eager to hear about it from someone who had been there. That's why, as soon as the we all found an empty compartment on the Hogwarts express and gotten comfortable, we hounded on Penny to give us the details. Penny, loving attention as she always does, had been telling the story for the past half hour. Not leaving a single part out.

"What's the dark mark?" I asked, breaking the silence. I was sitting curled up next to the window, nervously fiddling with my hands. The thought of what happened to those innocent muggles left me feeling sick. When Penny mentioned it in her letters, I didn't understand exactly how bad the situation was.

"It's like the death eater's trademark logo," Emephia answered, frowning. The blonde girl was sitting opposite me with her legs crossed, obviously as disturbed as I was.

"It's a skull with a snake coming out its mouth," added Ellie, laying beside Emephia. She also wore a frown. I knew what happened was scary. I couldn't imagine what it had been like for those poor muggles. The thought that wizards would want to hurt people because of their blood was disgusting. That could have been anyone hanging in the air, those death eaters didn't care. A shiver of fear suddenly ran through my body at the thought of any of my family and friends back home in Brighton in the place of those poor people. However, I had a feeling that the frowns on the other girls faces were mainly to do with the wizards who committed the act. I knew basis around the last war with you-know-who and his death eaters, but I hadn't grow up hearing about the war from people who had experienced it like my friends had. I didn't know the aftermath of the war as much as they did.

"Death eaters used to project the dark mark over places where they'd committed murder," Penny, beside me, explained. "It's not a good sign that it's shown up again."

I tried picturing the mark hovering over a camping field, like it had in the world cup. The reason for the skull was obvious, with the whole death thing. But the snake coming out its mouth? That's a bit weird. What's the snake for?

"What's the snake got to do with death?" I finally mused out loud, actually wanting to know the answer. Odd looks covered the girls faces.

"Out of all that, you're questioning the design of the mark?" Emephia smirked. I could see Penny also holding back a laugh.

"What?" I cried in defence, "I don't wanna know the reason behind any of the other stuff. The logo seemed the less likely to scar me for life." Ellie chuckled at this and grabbed a chocolate frog from her trunk, accidentally bumping into Emephia on the way and laughing. This made inwardly sigh with relief as it seemed that my musings had lifted the tension in the compartment.

"In that muggle book you gave me Cleo, they say that the snake is a phallic symbol." Ellie told me, biting the head off her frog. Emephia and I immediately erupted into laughter and Penny just shook her head and placed her head in her hands.

"What books have you been giving her?!" She cried. The black locks of her hair bouncing as she chuckled.

"Just some psychology GCSE textbook that my sister gave me when she finished school." I answered in-between fits of laughter. I'd read through it for light reading and found it quite amusing. Ellie has a massive obsession with muggles and their culture, so I just gave her anything that I didn't need any more. Mary, my sister, finished secondary school a few years ago, and didn't think the book to be any use to her in college since she wasn't taking psychology onto A-level. Since it hadn't been any use to me either, I decided to give it to Ellie. Oh merlin, I hoped she didn't start going all deep and meaningful into everything. This present may have been a mistake.

"It's about how the mind works and how we perceive everything!" Ellie's eyes sparkled with enthusiasm. I smiled at her reaction. Ellie's love for the muggle world was the same, maybe more, as my love for the wizard world. Finding out about magic had been the best thing to ever happen to me and I've tried to find out as much as I could about their culture. Though, I would never forget where I came from and believe that the wizard world needs some muggle. Phones, for example. There isn't much I wouldn't do to use a phone instead of an owl to contact home. The internet as well, it's tiring having to look through loads of books in the library to find something. Things would be so much easier if I could just google the ingredients to potions and how to pronounce certain charms.

"We should probably get into our robes," Emephia suggested after calming down, "the train will be at Hogsmeade soon."

"I can't wait to see everyone again!" Ellie chirped as we climbed into the carriage. I nodded in agreement.

"Me either! I wonder how Poppy got on with moving house." I said happily. Poppy Birkshore was one of my dorm-mates and she'd been talking about the new house since christmas holidays 5th year.

"I hope she hates it." Penny screwed her face up. Emephia adopted the same expression right after.

"Don't be so mean," I sighed, "she's been so excited about it." I knew it probably wasn't going to make any difference, but I still had to try. They needed to sort things out with Poppy. Penny rolled her dark brown eyes at me.

"Yeah, I know. She hasn't shut up about it since last christmas." She plonked herself down across the back seat, her green tie coming loose and swinging slightly to the right. The three of us left standing stumbled as the magical carriage jostled to life. I grabbed Emephia's shoulder for support and she collapsed backwards on the bench not occupied by Penny, letting out a small surprised screech. Ellie almost fell but managed to stay standing. She then immediately placed herself next to Emephia, obviously not wanting to fall if she lost her footing again. As a natural klutz, I took a few moments longer to regain balance. I walked over to Penny's side, moved her feet and sat down. She placed her legs back after I got comfortable.

"Anyway, Cleo, we can say what we want about her. Poppy doesn't like us either." Emephia perked up. She had a point, I was stubborn to admit. If they were going to make up, Poppy was going to have to co-operate too. I settled to deal with this problem later on.

"Sort your tie out, Pen. It's annoying me." Ellie whined, her eyes staring daggers at where Penny's tie was now almost completely off her neck and on the floor of the carriage.

"Your face is annoying me," Penny retorted with an amused glint in her eyes. Ellie huffed in frustration.

"Your presence is annoying me."

"Your existence is annoying me."

"Just sort your tie out already!"

"Only if you do". Ellie frowned.

"There's nothing wrong my tie." She stated, giving Penny an odd look.

"Yeah there is, it's around your neck," Penny explained, eyes staring up at the night sky. Her hands moved with each syllable, as if she was talking to a five year old. Confusion covered Ellie's face and she looked at Penny like she was mad.

Penny then looked up at Ellie, took her feet off me, sat up straight on the seat and gave her a sweet innocent smile. I shared a confused look with Emephia, who shrugged. Ellie squinted suspiciously at our slytherin friend and leaned forward.

"You alright there P- AHH!" Ellie cried as Penny tackled her. Emephia tried to shush them. I wouldn't be surprised if all the other carriages could hear the commotion.

"PENNY TAINE GET OFF-"

"Give me your tie!"

"-ME NOW I SWEAR TO MER-"

"I'll get off when I get the tie!"

"-LIN I WILL MURDER YOU! THAT HURT YOU BI-"

"YES! I got the tie!" Penny was jumping out of the moving carriage and racing in the direction of the castle. Emephia and I, now crying with laughter, watched Ellie herself jump off the carriage and chase after Penny.

"GIVE ME THAT BACK NOW!"

"Nope! I think I want to be a gryffindor now! Do you wanna swap houses?!"

I watched as their figures disappeared off the path. Their voices started to drift away, becoming hard to figure out what they were saying. Jesus, they were drama queens. Emephia slowly stood up and strolled to the opposite side of the carriage to retrieve Penny's tie.

"All that because Ellie wanted Penny to fix her tie." I shook my head and chuckled. Emephia swung the strip of green fabric around her hand.

"We need to get ourselves some new friends." She claimed. I agreed, though I knew I would be lost without our two eccentric, noisy, theatrical friends.

The two girls returned not long after Emephia settled back down across from me. Ellie's usual shoulder length wavy brown hair was sticking up in every direction possible and dirt covered her crumpled uniform from head to toe. However, she climbed in with a victorious smirk across her face and the gryffindor tie around her neck.

Penny clambered in the carriage looking just as disheveled. Bits of twigs, dirt and I didn't want to know what else had gotten tangled into her long dark hair. Her battered uniform was ripped in places and she was missing a shoe. Surprisingly, she too had a smile on her face, though it was obvious that she had lost.

"Bloody hell, why are you so dirty?" Emephia asked in disgust. She pressed her mouth in a thin line and kept her distance by backing away from them.

"Went into the forest. Fell in a ditch." Ellie answered simply. She walked with a bounce in her step towards me, bits of leaves falling out on the way and on the floor.

"We decided not to trade houses after all." Penny added. Emephia sighed and placed a hand to her face, making it look as if they gave her a headache. We all knew she was playing though, she was most likely trying to hide her smile. Penny and Ellie were the loud ones of the group. They thrived off attention, tend to over exaggerate everything and never seem to be able to sit still for long periods of time. The Professors at Hogwarts had learnt very early to keep them apart in lessons. Even their differences complimented each other well. Penny looked for fights wherever she can get them, but Ellie's calculating and was could good at telling how good odds Penny had at winning and hold's her back at times.

"Are you really going to walk into the great hall looking like that?" Ellie groaned at Emephia's question and dropped next to me, putting her head on my shoulder.

"I'd forgotten about the welcome feast." She mumbled into my uniform. I moved my arm behind Ellie and patted her back in comfort, ignoring the dirt that was probably now all over my uniform. Opposite me, Penny had managed to snatch her tie from Emephia and wrapped it back around her neck.

"Aww, Ellie, you worried about a certain ravenclaw seeing you?" Penny teased. Ellie murmured something that vaguely sounded like "maybe". I felt a pang of pity for my gryffindor friend. She'd had this crush since fourth year, and being that nervous at the thought of Roger seeing her in that state made me a little sad. I doubt he would care about seeing her covered in dirt, but Ellie sure thought it.

"I saw Davies getting on the train, he had obviously been playing quidditch through the summer. He definitely wasn't that bulky last term." Emephia smirked as Ellie's face reddened, "you know who I also saw? Ryan Maybell. I heard that he got in a fight last month with his cousin Brenneth over some veela girl they met on holiday in Australia..."

We spent the rest of the ride with Emephia telling us all the gossip she'd heard so far. She's basically the queen of rumours, Emephia was. She never created them, but did spread them like fire. People were constantly coming to her, asking about what she knew about certain people and events. Emephia always seemed to know everything people were saying behind others backs, regardless of whether it was true. Even now, at the start of sixth year, none of us knew how she finds it all out so quickly. Though I'm not sure if I ever want to know. Penny's always saying that she'd make an excellent journalist, kind of like Rita Skeeter. I'm pretty sure Penny meant it as an insult, Emephia took it as praise.

"- so it's possible that their not together anymore, but I personally think that their faking the break up to get everyone off their backs about the whole thing." Emephia finally finished her speech on the relationship between Milo Hansell and Georgia Jiles in the year above us.

"We haven't even arrived at Hogwarts yet! How do you know all this already?" Penny demanded, voicing what I'd thought for the past few minutes.

"I bumped into a few people on the train." Emephia simply shrugged and Ellie rolled her eyes.

The carriage suddenly shuddered as it came to a stop, causing me to make an effort to stay seated and not fall forward on the floor. I tried to brush some of the dirt Ellie had transferred to me off my uniform before clambering off the horseless carriage after Penny. We all started to head to the castle when a voice was heard from behind us.

"Why are you covered in mud?" I turned to see a tall boy with black dreadlocks looking pointedly at Ellie and Penny. I smiled at his untidy uniform and loose tie, similar to how Penny's uniform looked after she wrestled Ellie before jumping out the carriage with her tie. However, I knew that this disorganisation was done purposely on his part. Lee Jordan hated order.

"Penny had a problem with her tie." Ellie stated, sending her friend a glare. Penny smiled back innocently. Lee looked confused for a moment before shrugging to himself, obviously deciding that he didn't want to know. I guessed that by being best friends with Fred and George, he stopped asking questions long ago. Mentioning the twins, where were they? Normally where there's Lee, Fred and George weren't far behind. I looked around the area, but after seeing no sign of them I settled that they must have already headed on towards the castle.

"Do you think McGonagall and Snape will let you bunk off the welcome feast?" Lee asked as we started walking to the castle, staying behind a group of fourth years. Ellie scowled at the thought.

"I doubt it," she huffed "I'm going to get you back for this Pen." Penny expression changed to exaggerated hurt as she turned to Ellie.

"Hey! I've got to go to the hall like this too!" She cried, shaking her shoeless foot and gesturing to her grimy clothes and hair.

"You know, If I push you into the lake it'll get rid of the dirt," Ellie hissed back before stopping in her track. Her eyes widened as she muttered to herself, "that's not actually a bad idea." Oh no. Please tell me she's not going to.

"What would you prefer," Ellie swiftly turned to Penny, hope apparent in her voice,"Walking into the great hall covered in dirt, twigs and merlin knows what else or soaking wet?" Yep. She's going to.

"No! You'll probably be breaking the rules." I told her concerned. It's only the first night! Even the twins hadn't gotten a detention on the first night. Lee, smiling as he'd figured out what Ellie was talking about doing, looked at me mischievously.

"Aww, Cassidy. Even though you've never broken a rule in your life, I don't think Baylee or Taine care about a detention." He patted me on the head, causing me to duck and move away. Lee and the twins found my height (5 ft) funny and had taken up the habit of patting my head whenever they saw me. It didn't annoy me any-more because I'd gotten used to it over the past few years, but I still duck and back away.

"I'd rather be soaking wet," Penny smiled, ignoring Lee and I, in answer to Ellie's question. Lee happily steered the group in the direction of the lake.

"Isn't there a spell that'll clean you?" I asked in a last attempt to stop them. Penny shook her head whilst Ellie shrugged and glanced at Emephia, our fellow ravenclaw.

"Yeah, there's quite a few spells actually," Emephia smirked, "not that I can remember any of them though." I groaned. I tried to think of any other excuses to stop them but nothing came to mind by the time we reached the glistening lake. Having never been out after curfew, I hadn't gotten the chance to see the lake at night before. The moon's reflection on the calm water would've usually caused me to feel a sense of peace. However, what my friends were about to do stopped me from feeling anything but stressed.

"Fine. Go ahead and do what you want," I gave up, "I'm going to head to the great hall now, though." I was way too hungry to look after them when they came out of the lake with hypothermia. Plus I didn't trust them enough to not drag me with them, especially with Lee accompanying.

"What!"

"Why?"

"Come on Cleo!"

"I don't need to take a swim! I'll see you inside!" I called back when the wave of voices overwhelmed me and I changed direction back to Hogwarts. Light illuminated out of the castle door, inviting me in to the warmth. With each step I took I pictured the different food that will appear on the tables to eat. I wonder if the feast had started yet? We had taken a long time to walk up the path. I hadn't seen the first years with Hagrid yet, but they could've passed without me noticing.

I was so caught up in my thoughts that I didn't see two people coming my way until I literally bumped into the chest one of them, causing me to stumble. A strong arm reached out and gripped my shoulder tightly to stop me from falling. I looked up to apologise to who I'd walked into and saw a cheerful red-head grinning down at me.

"Cleo! As elegant as always." Fred greeted happily, letting go of my shoulder. I took a step back and realised I'd made it to the doors of the entrance hall.

"Hey Fred," I smiled. I then noticed his twin beside him looking amused. "Hi George. Why aren't you two in the great hall?" The two glanced at each other and their smiles turned to smirks.

"You know, miss Cassidy." George started, crossing his arms.

"We could ask you the same thing." Fred continued, his hands going to his hips.

"It's quite suspicious, being out here all alone."

"With everyone else in the great hall."

"If we didn't know you that well."

"We'd say that you were getting up to -"

"Mischief!" They said the last word in unison. I inwardly clapped. Even after knowing them for years, I still got amazed when they managed to communicate like that. If it wasn't for a few tiny differences in their appearance and voices, I would say that one was just a clone of the other. Their ability to know what the other was thinking, have silent conversations and finish each other's sentences is really impressive. Not that I'd let them know this, of course. I didn't want to boost their ego's any more, their heads were big enough already. I smiled a little at them instead.

"Good thing you know me well then. I was just held up by Ellie and Penny." I said and turned to look outside. I couldn't see much in the darkness, but I could faintly make out a few balls of light from where the lake should be. That must mean Hagrid hadn't gotten here with the first years yet. I hoped my friends managed to not get caught. Or at least didn't scare the children too much. I could imagine Penny jumping out of the black water at some unsuspecting innocent student.

"We were looking for Lee." Fred finally answered from before. George scrunched his eyebrows together in concern, now reminded of why they had left the hall.

"Oh! He's by the lake with Penny, Emephia and Ellie." I let them know and concern disappeared from their faces.

"Why's he with them by the lake?" George asked, clearly confused.

"Probably so he could push one of them i-" I started but was interrupted as the boy we were discussing rushed by us laughing his head off.

"Oi!" Fred called to Lee as his best friend went to enter the great hall. He'd obviously not noticed us.

"Got to go in before she kills me!" Lee called back without stopping. The door to the great hall closed with loud bang behind him.

"Before who kills him?" George mused before looking outside and muttering a small "Ohhh." Fred's eyes widened as he followed George's line of sight and the corners of his mouth twitched upwards. Curiosity got the better of me and I turned to see out over the grounds of Hogwarts. My eyes met with an angry blonde storming up the path. Dripping wet. Lee is so dead.

"I'm going to m-m-murder that gryffindor p-p-prick." Emephia shivered when she reached us. Her eyes were staring daggers at the door to the entrance hall. If looks could kill, the door would be in a million pieces. Fred and George backed away a few steps, keeping their distance from Emephia.

"Well..." Fred started, eyeing my friend cautiously, "it's been lovely bumping into you Cleo, literally."

"But we must be getting back to the great hall now." George finished. They both raised their hands, quickly patted my head and dashed off before I could do anything about it. I put my attention back to Emephia, who was still muttering about Lee.

"I ca-can-can't be-believe he p-p-p-pushed me in. No, I ca-can believe i-i-it. I can't b-b-believe we le-let him co-c-come. I'm going to m-m-mur-murder him." She said while her teeth chattered. Her blonde wavy hair clung to her glistening face and drooping uniform. Her body was shaking from head-to-toe. Whether this was from the cold or the anger at lee I didn't know. Probably both. I quickly took out my wand from my pocket and cast a warming charm over her that I faintly remembered reading in one of my textbooks. I barely remembered the incantation so I hoped it worked. Emephia sighed in content almost immediately, which I took as a sign that I got the spell right.

"You alright?" I asked. She nodded and muttered a small "thank you" while she tried to ring the water out of her tangled hair. I could hear voices and footsteps coming our way and looked to see Ellie and Penny, followed by Hagrid and the first years. The two girls were no longer covered in dirt and were in a similar state to Emephia. However, they seemed to be talking happily to Hagrid, so I gathered he must have cast (discretely, since he's not supposed to do magic) a warming spell over them.

"How you feeling, Em? Did you kill Jordan?" Penny asked Emephia as they came into the entrance hall and joined us.

"I'm feeling better thanks to Cleo," Emephia nodded her head towards me. "I'll get Jordan back later." She added venomously and glared at the door to the great hall again.

"I can't wait to see that." Ellie said cheerfully. She noticed me and looked confused.

"What are you doing here? You left us ages ago." Ellie stated. She shook her arms to get the water off, nearly accidentally smacking an eleven year old. The student ducked in fright and dashed away to the back of the crowd.

"Bumped into Fred and George." I laughed at her. Emephia perked up when she heard what I'd said.

"Oooh! You should've seen them. Turns out Roger Davies wasn't the only one playing quidditch all summer." Emephia smirked. Oh great, I had a feeling I was going to be hearing a lot more about the twins from her this year.

"Alright, you four!" Hagrid clapped his hands behind us, "Off you go to the great hall, the first years'll be coming in soon." We followed the half giant's orders and made our way into the great hall. I smiled at the sight of all the student's chattering animatedly, catching up after a summer apart. Over at the gryffindor table I saw the twins entertaining the crowd around of them. Lee, sat next to them, froze mid-laugh and tensed as he noticed us enter. He ducked down and tried to blend in behind Angelina Johnson, another gryffindor in our year. I laughed at his poor attempt to hide and noticed Fred let George carry on with their speech to chuckle at him too. The red-head looked towards us and gave me a wink when our eyes met. I quickly averted my gaze to Emephia, who was looking anywhere but the gryffindor table.

"So I'll see you witches tomorrow," Penny smirked. We all said our farewells and headed to our appropriate tables. Though I loved the feasts, I hated having to part from my best friends. We can sometimes get away with sitting together on normal days, but at the feasts sitting at a different house's table was a big no-no. Therefore with that in thought, Penny headed to the slytherin table, Ellie headed to the gryffindor table, Emephia headed to the ravenclaw table, and I headed to the hufflepuff table.

"Hi Cleo!" Cedric Diggory, a hufflepuff in my year, greeted as I sat down at the table, "did you have a good summer?"

"I did thanks. How about you?" I answered cheerfully. I made small talk with him and the other hufflepuffs in my year until the first years came in and the sorting started. I glanced at the other tables to see how my friends were doing while a small brunette got sorted into gryffindor. Ellie and Emephia seemed fine, though Emephia occasionally glared over at the gryffindor table at Lee. Penny, though, was the one I was most worried about. The slytherin house was big on their blood and a lot of the students in it looked down on people like me (muggleborn). Since Penny didn't care about blood status, and told people who did care that they needed to go get a grip and sort their life out, she'd made more enemies than friends in the house. Because of this, she barely ever sat at the slytherin table for meals.

She was sat at the table with a great gap between her and the nearest student. I couldn't tell whether this was because they didn't like her or because she was soaking wet. Either way, Penny didn't seem to mind. She actually looked quite content while she watched the first years get sorted, even clapping when some were sorted into slytherin.

I finally tore my gaze from my friends when there was only a few first years left standing for the sorting. I could almost smell the food already.