Chapter 1

The carriages were unnaturally quick to get to the castle that year. Probably because of the torrential rain. But Alice liked to think it was because fate was trying to pull her to her destiny just that little bit faster. She looked in a small mirror to check her hair and makeup. Still immaculate. Obviously. The girls would never let her move about in public with even the tiniest flaw. Said girls were now gossiping about Astor's new boyfriend, how much of a stud he was and her bedroom adventures with him. In about a week's time the conversation would change to how much of an asshole he was and how hot her new boyfriend looked without clothes on. Alice laughed at the thought. How beautifully heartbroken he would be when Astor cooks up a rumour about him abusing her or whatnot. Giving her an excuse to dump him and run into the next boys arms for comfort. That's how it usually played out and it worked every time.

Alice glanced back at one of the other carriages, as hers pulled to a stop at the castle, and saw a single boy get out and run towards the doors by himself, none followed from the same carriage. All she could see about him was that he was tall and reasonably athletic, the rest of his features were obscured by the rain and his cloak pulled up over his head. He stumbled running up the stairs but didn't stop until he was through the doors.

"Coming Alice?" Hillary called back. Realising that she was the only one left in the carriage and the rest of the girls were halfway up the stairs, Alice quickly rushed after them into the castle, then into the great hall where she took her seat at the Ravenclaw table. The boy from earlier was sitting further down by himself, meaning his friends must be in a different house. Obviously. The sorting went as normal, with several additions to the Ravenclaw house, most looked promising, some not, like a single girl with multi-coloured hair and a foul expression.

Dumbledore's speech was full of the regular welcome backs and announcements followed by several important rules for the first years, a quick glance at the Gryffindor table shows that Hillary is not paying attention and over at the Slytherin table Astor is playing with something in her boyfriend's lap. In a fit of utter embarrassment Alice's eyes dart about the hall drinking in all the features to push out her other thoughts, she could feel blood beginning to drip from her nose, just like it always did when she saw things like that. The colour matched her cheeks perfectly. She looked furiously about the table for a napkin but the food hadn't appeared from the kitchens yet so there would be no use for napkins. Her head quickly ducked into her robes and she wiped the blood on the inside of her cloak. When she finished checking to make sure there was no more blood, she looked back to Dumbledore.

"I can see that eyes have glazed over and stomachs are beginning to rumble, my speech is at an end so everybody tuck in!" Dumbledore shouted before sitting down on his seat at the head table. All kinds of food blossomed onto every table, from chicken wings to pumpkin pie. There was anything to suit your tastes. I had a peanut allergy and when I confronted Madam Pomfrey about this she said:

"The kitchens don't prepare any foods that have an ingredient a student is allergic too. Besides even if you do have a reaction, I can fix those instantly." After that conversation Alice ate more freely, but was still very conscious about how healthy a food was. Her body had to remain in peak physical condition if she was to stay on the local quidditch team back home. Although her father had urged her to try out for the Ravenclaw team she refused to. No-one knew she played quidditch and she would prefer it stay that way.

Hyuna and Lanie were giggling about something and looking down the table towards the boy from before. He had spilled pumpkin juice down the front of him and everyone was laughing. His cheeks went bright red and the colour went down into his neck. Now that his features were revealed Alice made a note of his appearance. He had short, styled blonde hair and curious pale-blue eyes. He ducked his head and furiously tried to clean his robes with a napkin. Someone across the table pointed there wand at him and cast the cleaning spell scrougify on his robes.

"Who is that guy?" Hyuna asked, trying to stifle her laughter. Lanie shrugged her shoulders and burst out into another fit of hysterical laughter as the boy got distracted while he was pouring himself another pumpkin juice and the goblet overflowed, spilling the liquid across the table and onto the floor. His cheeks, neck and ears went an even deeper shade of scarlet and started mumbling all sorts of apologies as he copied the same cleaning spell to scrub up the mess.

Eventually the feast ended and Lanie and Alice dawdled their way to the Ravenclaw tower. Hyuna hurried past with the first years struggling to keep up with her brisk pace. When we arrived at the tower, some first years were struggling with their entry question.

"Does a Boggart have a clearly defined form?"

Various questions danced through the crowd of first years.

"What's a boggart?"

"Has anyone ever seen one like that before?"

"I have no idea why I'm in this house…"

Lanie smiled sympathetically at the kids and started to ask them simple questions about boggarts. Most were able to answer the questions easily, meaning they would be pure bloods or halfbloods, a few had confused looks plastered across their faces. But they still seemed to be listening to the answers eagerly. Until someone spoke from behind Alice and Lanie.

"A boggart has no clearly defined form, it is the manifestation of fear only given a physical form when confronted by a creature of normality. Normality meaning the creature in question does have fears. If a person with no fears were to approach a boggart, we are to assume the boggart would die. However this theory is yet to be proven as the chance for a being to never fear is implausible." Alice spun around to see the boy from before standing still with his hands shoved in his pockets and a serious look on his face.

"Beautifully worded." A voice said as the door swung open. The look Hyuna gave the boy would've made a dementor flee. She waded waist high through the crowd of first years who were frantically trying to get through the door before it closed and they had to answer another question.

"You're not supposed to help with their first one!" She growled. "It's the rules." To which the boy shrugged and moved to walk past but found his entrance to the common room blocked by Hyuna and Alice.

"Come on guys, that was a tough one, even I was taking time to organise my thoughts." Lanie whined. Alice and Hyuna ignored and stared down the boy. He sighed and shrugged his shoulders again.

"I'm sorry for breaking the rules, I won't do it again." He mumbled, not meeting the girls' gaze. Wordlessly Hyuna and Alice moved aside allowing him entrance, and then the three girls quickly followed after him.