Authors Note: Okay so this is my first story ever! It's just for fun and about me and my friends (of the same names) so it's mostly OOC but I hope you'll still enjoy it, and reviews would be most appreciated! Thanks, and enjoy!

Disclaimer: I do not own Harry Potter or anything to do with the franchise.

A loud shrieking sound followed by a thud is what woke Beth Robertson the first morning of her holidays. She groaned as she rolled over and pulled the covers over her head. She knew she should probably check on what had happened to cause that series of noises, but she also knew she was tired, and with the holidays officially in swing she planned to sleep for as long as she possibly could. After an extra few minutes deliberating she finally decided to get up.

The noise, it turned out, was her brother falling down the stairs. She gave an annoyed sigh over her breakfast at the fact that was the reason she'd had to get up. She'd been having an amazing dream. The specifics of it were fading the more she tried to remember it, but it was as though she'd been flying. Colourful sparks had jumped in the air around her and she briefly remembered seeing a black cat run past her as she soared. It had been weird, yet wonderful.

It was 3 o'clock exactly when Beth made it onto the number 30 bus, following her usual morning of uneventful happenings. She hated getting the bus. It was always too full and smelt like sweaty people, but with all the adults in her life away or at work it sadly was the only way to get to Elaine's house.

The bus ride wasn't as long as she had made it seem in her head though. She swung her bag onto her shoulder as she started the short walk from the bus stop to her friend's house, her headphones blaring in her ears.

Elaine Daglish had been friends with Beth since they were 8 years old. She stood at her bedroom window looking out excitedly for her friends. It was her turn to host their annual first-day-of-the-holidays sleepover, so while her room normally felt quite big, the two camp beds placed in front of her wardrobes were giving the room an unnatural feeling of compactness.

As soon as she saw Beth appear at the top of her drive Elaine grinned and ran to her door. Beth had only managed to raise her arm to knock on the door when it swung open, revealing her excited friend behind it.

"Hi Beth!" Elaine said, her hazel eyes shining with eagerness.

"Hey Elaine." Beth smiled back as Elaine gestured for her to come in.

Dumping her bag on the middle camp bed Beth looked around her friend's room. It hadn't changed since she was last there; the huge oak wardrobes behind her were the same, as was Elaine's bed in the corner of the room, covered in plain, blue sheets that matched the walls. The same posters were staring back at her, and the TV near the door still had a big mess of different video games and DVDs scattered in front of it. This was all as familiar to her as her room was to Elaine.

"What time did you tell Em?"

"Same time as you. She'll just be late."

Emily Smith was their other best friend, and made the third in their trio. It just happened that as they said this Emily's mam pulled up outside of the house, popping the boot for her daughter to get her stuff out of it. After shouting a quick 'thanks' to her mam, Emily ran up Elaine's driveway and knocked on the door.

"About time!" Was the first thing Elaine said to her friend as she opened the door to let her in. "We've been waiting ages for you!"

"Don't exaggerate Elaine." Emily muttered, making her way to Elaine's bedroom. "I'm barely five minutes late. Hey Beth."

"Hey." Beth smiled back.

That was when the party really began. After dumping their stuff the girls went straight outside to Elaine's back garden where they could play on her trampoline. This did mean that they had to go through the living room where Elaine's family were all sitting around and chatting.

"Hi girls!" Elaine's mum smiled at them. "I didn't hear you come in."

"Well I didn't really get a chance to knock…" Beth replied, looking between Elaine's mum, dad and grandma sitting on the two sofas' that took up most of the remaining space that wasn't already taken up by the TV and huge wooden bookshelf containing all kinds of books and kick-knacks they had collected from over the years.

"Well just say when you're ready for dinner and I'll phone up. I was thinking we could order in?"

The girls nodded in agreement and murmured their thanks before continuing outside where they spent the new few hours finding all sorts of new ways to almost fall off a trampoline, even with a safety fence around it.

"You guys realise in 6 weeks we'll be starting secondary school?" Beth said as she bounced around her two friends sitting cross-legged in the middle of the trampoline. "I wish we were all going to the same one though…"

Emily and Elaine exchanged solemn faces but didn't say anything.

"Promise we'll keep in touch though." Beth said with one final bounce in which she too cross her legs mid-air causing her landing to throw her friends onto their sides. They laughed.

"Of course we will." Emily smiled, though it was rather weak. "We'll write… or text or whatever. And… see each other in the holidays! Like now!"

"Yeah. It's our tradition isn't it?" Elaine shrugged as she shoved Beth onto her side too. "Stop worrying man. Hey, do you guys want to go to the park tomorrow? If the weather is like this I mean."

And with that the subject was changed to making plans for the holidays, before going inside to ask Elaine's mum to order a large pizza.

Back in her room Elaine picked a movie which they didn't really watch because they were talking, and later eating, over the top of it, discussing anything and everything that had happened to them recently. Beth had just come back from the bathroom when there was a loud snapping noise. Emily and Beth turned their heads in Elaine's direction. She was leaning on her bed, her eyes shut and grimacing.

"What was that?"

Elaine sat up. "Would you believe me if I said my leg?"

"No."

"Then it was…" She pulled back her pillow to reveal two long pieces of varnished wood, which clearly used to be one until Elaine had lain on it. "...a stick."

"Why do you have a stick in your bed Elaine?" Emily asked raising her eyebrows. It was an expression Beth and Elaine were very used to seeing from their friend when they did something wrong.

"Uh, that's a good question…" Elaine chewed her tongue, looking around her room as if that would suddenly provide her with an answer. "Well firstly it's Zoe's stick, and she's now gonna kill me. Secondly, I dunno why it's in my bed. I think she collects them or something." She paused, slipping the two pieces into her draw. "My sister is very weird isn't she?"

She still wasn't meeting their eyes, and though Emily gave her a scathing look they accepted the story without further question.

After a few more minutes of chat Elaine went to say goodbye to her parents as they left, while her two friends got ready for bed. Elaine's gran made them some hot chocolate and soon the end to a great although extremely normal day came to an end.

Beth had the same dream that night, though she could barely remember it in the morning again. She was flying again, but instead of darkness with the odd flashes of colour, she was soaring over busy streets and roads, red double decker buses and, once she saw the London Eye, knew she must be in London. This was weird considering she lived right in the north of England and only been to London once when she was very little, but she couldn't control where she was going. She just kept soaring higher and higher into the clouds until the London Eye looked like a dot below. She was joined in the air by hundreds of different kinds of owls when the various sparks of colour appeared and she woke up just before a dark tawny owl collided with her head.

After taking a minute to compose herself, shaking her head Beth got up and went to the bathroom to get dressed. Why did this bizarre dream keep coming to her, and what did it mean? Or did it mean nothing and she was just worrying too much about nothing? She splashed cold water on her face and went back to Elaine's bedroom trying to push the remaining thoughts of the dream out of her head. She could tell her friends of course, but it was just a dream. It didn't mean anything.

Emily had woken up and was drawing a smiley face on Elaine's arm when Beth got back. She sniggered at her friend's immaturity, sat on her bed and pulled on her trainers. No, she wouldn't say anything. Her friends probably had weird dreams about places they hadn't been to before as well. Nothing to worry about.

After a few minutes of chat, Elaine too woke up. Seeing the drawing on her arm straight away she threw her pillow at Emily and war began. The pillow fight didn't last long however, as Elaine's gran knocked on the door to ask what they wanted for breakfast.

"So what are we going to do today?" Emily asked as she took a bite of toast.

"I thought we'd agreed on the park?"

"If the weather was alright! You can see the dark clouds already forming from here!"

Beth glanced out Elaine's bedroom window and saw Emily was right. There were ominous dark clouds forming overhead, rain was a sure thing today. There was however, something else also in the sky. Three things actually. Coming straight towards them.

"Uh, guys?" Beth said, dropping her remaining toast back on her plate.

"What Beth?"

"What's that and why is it heading towards us?"

She pointed to the window without taking her eyes off the three moving objects outside. Now that they were closer Beth could see they had wings and so must be birds, but what birds would be so stupid as to fly straight into a glass window?

There was a squeak of bedsprings as Elaine jumped off her bed and ran to the window to throw it open. Beth opened her mouth to ask why she thought that was even slightly a good idea, when in the three birds flew. They all took a lap of Elaine's room before landing gracefully on Elaine's bed with a hoot.

The three girls all stood by the window staring at the owls that had just flown in through the window. They all exchanged puzzled looks before the middle owl (a dark tawny, just like from Beth's dream) jumped forward and stuck its leg out. Attached to it, as on the other two birds, was a white envelope with dark green writing on one side and a red wax seal on the other.

It was Elaine who took the step forward towards the bird. Beth couldn't help but hold her breath. She loved animals, owls especially, but she'd never actually been near one, let alone seen one fly through her friend's bedroom window! And here Elaine was, walking towards it as if this was her usual method of receiving post.

Elaine untied the letter carefully, pausing only once to glance worryingly at her friends. As soon as she had finished the bird flapped it's large wings and went to perch on top of Elaine's wardrobe.

"Elaine Daglish, 28, Henderson Road…" Elaine had been reading the front of the letter, but trailed off with a knowing look in her eye. She flipped the other two letters round too and read their addresses.

"Emily Smith and Beth Robertson… there's one for each of us."

She suddenly seemed to get very excited and was much less gentle in untying the letters from the other two owls, who hooted indignantly at her before joining the other on top of the wardrobe. Beth didn't know what to say, and neither apparently did her two friends. Elaine was busy ripping open her letter, while Emily apprehensively walked over and took her letter in both of her hands, biting her lip.

"W-what is going on?" Beth finally managed to get out, looking between her two friends who didn't answer her. She still hadn't moved, but the expression on Elaine's face certainly had. Her eyes quickly scanned the letter and her grin grew wider with each passing moment. Emily had only managed to flip the letter over and examine the red seal keeping it closed when Elaine jumped up and let out a squeal of delight.

"Why didn't you guys tell me?!" She shouted, her arms flying above her head.

"Tell you what? What's going on?" Beth asked again, earning her a confused look from Elaine. This made her a little angry as Elaine seemed to understand what was happening, so if anyone had the right to be confused it was her. At this point however Emily gasped and then matched Elaine's grin.

"You mean you're going to Hogwarts too?!"

Elaine's attention snapped to Emily again and the two grinned at each other for a few moments before jumping up and grabbing each other in a hug. Beth just watched as her friends embraced shouting things like "I can't believe it!" and "How after 4 years could we not have realised?!"

After they and finally stopped jumping, the two sat down on the bed and compared letters.

"It's all of my family Em!" Elaine cried, still shaking with excitement. "My whole family! Gran, parents, sisters, everyone! It's been so hard to hide it from you whenever you came round!"

"I can't believe it!" Emily stated with a bewildered expression. "It's my mam in my family. Though technically my dad too. He's a muggle-born…"

After this there was silence in the room, besides the sounds of the owls scratching on top of Elaine's wardrobe, and the distant sounds of the TV on in the living room where Elaine's gran had no idea of the events going on in her granddaughter's bedroom.

"I'll say again: What is going on?! Guys?"

Her friends exchanged glances. Their expressions had suddenly changed from ones of excitement to apprehension. Emily took the untouched third letter off the bed and held it out for Beth to take.

"Just… read this Beth. It'll explain… some of it."

Anger and confusion mixed with her curiosity. After a few moment the latter won out and she snatched the envelope from Emily's hand. On the front in fancy, green writing it read:

Miss Beth Robertson

Elaine's Bedroom

28 Henderson Road

Tyne and Wear

Beth looked up at them with a puzzled expression, before examining the red seal closing the envelope. It had a crest divided into four sections on it but she couldn't really make out what else it had on it. She opened it and almost dropped the letter once she had finished reading.

HOGWARTS SCHOOL OF WITCHCRAFT AND WIZARDRY

Dear Miss Robertson,

We are pleased to inform you that you have a place at Hogwarts school of Witchcraft and Wizardry. Please find enclosed a list of all necessary books and equipment. Term begins on September 1st. We wait your owl not later than August 5th.

Yours sincerely,

Minerva McGonagall, Deputy Headmistress.