Avery
The train is always boring. Or it has been, for years now.
The first time I was even on the train was two years ago. I met my two best-est friends; Katrina and Elizabeth. I don't meet anyone new anymore, because all the First Years are timid little people, and I'm not on the favorites list of anyone else. It might have been the Rubber Duck Pajama incident last year, or maybe the Fluffy Chicken Teddy Bear incident in the first year... I'm not sure. But I've got Katrina and Elizabeth, and I'm fine with that.
Katrina, Elizabeth, and I are all muggleborn, which basically means that our families aren't magical. I'm probably the only redhead at school that's not a Weasley, though I'm constantly mistaken for the girl, Ginny, who's about my age. Katrina tells me that we look nothing alike. I'm not sure I should trust her. I mean she's got a death wish. She told Malfoy that he needed new hair because he looked like an thirties schoolgirl or something. I can't remember so well, because I think I got hit in the head. I think.
She's also cut and dyed his hair multiple times, but I'll tell you about that later.
The first greeting of the year is always disastrous. Elizabeth is coming at me from one direction, yelling her head off, and Katrina is running at me from the other, eager to show off whatever martial arts gear or skills she's obtained over the summer. It sounds a bit like this:
"Avvvaaaaaa" "Oh, Crap!" "Ow!" "Katriiinaaaaa!"
And that's just the way we are. Elizabeth will be all "OMG! POPCORN!" and Katrina is very "see me and die" and I suppose I'm very artsy and giggly. Hyperactive, if you will. I hate classrooms, and I hate taking notes. My notes for fifth grade Social Studies are basically one, long cartoon depicting the civil war in Rome and some of the stuff on Greece and Egypt.
I sorta failed that class. Just a little bit.
I can't sit still for very long. I'd much rather be joking around with Elizabeth and Katrina. Laughing. Smiling. Being happy. Teachers basically forbid that in their classes. No smiles. No fun. No lives.
People tell me that I laugh at everything. Well then. Not my fault you guys are so funny.
This year, Elizabeth is already on the train, and Katrina's boarding just as I run through the entrance, because I'm really late. There's only one door left open and they're about to close it right when I get on the train. I had no more energy; I used it all up when I ran from the first platform to platform nine and three quarters. I just sit next to the door for probably ten minutes before I join the crowds of students who want to visit all of their friends before they get to the school. I push and shove my way through, glancing through the doors of each of the compartments that I passed.
Nope. No. Definitely not. Malfoy. Potter. Parkinson. First Years. More First Years. Yes!
Elizabeth and Katrina are sitting in a compartment at the back of the train. The wall are a sort of cream color, but there's a target drawn on one side in Sharpie and a score tally on the wall adjacent to the one with the target. I know they've been playing for only a few minutes because Elizabeth has one more point this time (she had none last year) and Katrina has four more. There's seven pencils with broken tips on the ground below the target, and Elizabeth has one in her hand. This is their fourth round.
I slip into our compartment. On the way back, in first year, we had a bunch of pencils that our parents bought us as school supplies years and years ago, and we'd needed to use them up. So, we drew a target on the wall, and we threw the pencils at it like a game of darts. Nobody could figure out how to get the Sharpie off, because it's permanent marker with lots of anti-magic drawing abilities.
We charmed the wall so it wouldn't come off. Shhhh...
"Hiiiiii!", I shouted as loudly as I could. Katrina and Elizabeth didn't miss a beat, and both replied with identical "Hiiiiii!"s.
We threw pencils around for a few hours, until the lady with the sweets came around.
Sitting in the end of the train has its perks. In this case, I'm talking about how nobody's bought all of the sweets yet, so you have a full cart to choose from. There's also the fact that nobody bothers you. The only people who sit back here are new teachers, but those are usually kick-butt DADA teachers, so I see no problem. But there's nobody this year.
I wonder if Lupin stayed. I hope so. He was awesome.
Probably not. But we can always hope.
We changed into our robes when we could see the castle, so we had to hustle. Elizabeth's shirt was backwards, Katrina's socks were in her pocket, and my pockets were all inside out and the cuffs of the black leggings that I wore under the required skirt were scrunched up, the left leg around my knee and the right near my ankle.
I would have just worn jeans or slacks, but nooo, they just have to have a dress code. Required skirts, really?
We rushed out of the nearest door, our wands in our hands because we had no time to put them away. Mine, made from pear and thestral hair, it smells kinda fruity. But that's just me, I think. It literally looks like I picked up a random stick from the ground and asked someone to carve it into a sorta wand shape. But what I like about my wand is that it's practically indestructible. I've sat down with it in my back pocket, and it didn't snap. I left it on the ground and my neighbor's dog tried to eat it. Still in perfect condition. I left it in a drawer with a Monster Book of Monsters that I took from someone (I don't remember who) for eight hours and it turned out the same as it had been before I put it in there.
Indestructibility is a good quality to have if you're gonna be around me.
Katrina's wand is made from a dark grayish colored wood. I'm not sure what the core is. I just know that it's not as indestructible as mine or Elizabeth's, who's wand is made from what I think is dogwood, and matches her mischievous personality. Again, I'm not sure what her wand's core is. I'm probably entirely wrong.
Elizabeth, Katrina and I finally got into the very last carriage, which started squeaking annoyingly as soon as we started moving. I fidgeted, because there was nothing I wanted more than to tear off the wheels and wait for someone to find us and take us back to the castle because I would be waaay too lazy to walk the entire way.
It took fifteen minutes to get to the castle.
I was about to die.
Then be reincarnated so I could destroy the squeaky wheel.
Then die again.
Because I was too lazy to find my way back to the Great Hall to eat.
Oh well.
"Thank you!" I muttered under my breath when the squeaking finally stopped. And there we were, in the Great Hall of Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry.
Finally.
A/N: Oh my gosh, three characters! That's because Hays' and my friend is also writing this as... Elizabeth! Go her!
Okay, so here's how this works. I, Fifi, am writing Avery. Some of the characters with more friendly, loving personalities will call her Ava and depending on who it is calling her that, she's either fine with it or not, similar to how I now find Fifi endearing even though if anyone but Hays tried to call me that it would not end well (for them). Hays is writing Katrina, the lead ninja, even though I started this off because I got tired of waiting.
So... yeah.