Chapter One: The New Girl
Chapter One: The New Girl
Harry stared absentmindedly at the bewitched ceiling of the Great Hall as he pushed his breakfast around his plate with a fork. Today was Monday, the day that Harry had his least favorite classes. Worst of all was double potions with the slytherins in the Hogwarts dungeon. Going to potions class also meant facing the one person at Hogwarts that he hated even more (if it was possible) than Draco Malfoy, Professor Severus Snape.
"Look," Hermione whispered. Her sudden outburst startled Harry, but she didn't seem to notice him jump. "Why is that girl wearing muggle clothes," she continued. Hermione nodded in the direction of a girl walking through the massive doorway of the Great Hall. She was wearing a bright yellow sweater with blue jeans, which made her hard to miss in the sea of black robes as she began to wander slowly around the long house tables. Other students seemed to notice the girl's strange un-wizard-like attire and turned to each other, whispering and pointing her out to their friends. Everyone knew that such clothes were only allowed on the weekends.
"Have you ever seen her before," Ron asked to neither one of them in particular. Both Harry and Hermione shook their heads. "Weird time to get a new student," Ron added. This was true, for it was nearing Christmas vacation. None of them had ever seen a new student come to Hogwarts on any day other than the first day of term.
The girl suddenly walked over towards the Gryffindor table and said, "Excuse me?" All of the Gryffindor students suddenly became very interested in their breakfasts, leaving Harry, Ron, and Hermione as the only students near where the girl stood who weren't staring down at their plates. "I'm Samantha Collins," she continued ignoring the fact that the majority of the students didn't want to talk to her, "Would you mind if I sat down here?"
Hermione squished up against Ginny to give Samantha room to sit down between her and Harry. From a quick sideways glance at Samantha, Harry saw that she had long, straight, black hair that swished back and forth across her back as she took her seat.
"So, Samantha," Hermione started after a moment of awkward silence, "Are you a new member of Gryffindor?"
With the look that Samantha gave Hermione, you would have assumed that Hermione had just sprouted another head. "Er, no," Samantha said, looking extremely confused.
"Oh," said Hermione, "What house are you in, then?"
"Uh, I don't really have a house right now," answered Samantha with the same what-are-you-talking-about look as before, "I'm kind of looking for one, though."
At this, Harry finally entered the conversation. "You don't just choose a house," he said, "The sorting hat puts you in one."
Samantha turned and gave him the same look as she gave Hermione, laughed, and said, "I get it, you guys are so funny! A 'sorting hat'. You actually had me going there for a second!" She laughed again, leaving the trio to look around at each other and give confused looks.
"So, I'm guessing you are new to the school," asked Ron when Samantha had stopped laughing.
"Wait, this is a school" Samantha asked in return. She pondered this for a moment, and then smiled. "You guys must be joking about this too," she laughed.
Hermione looked slightly aggravated, but said "no, we were serious about everything," very calmly.
"Right," the new girl said sarcastically. "Well, back to business. Let's see, what was I going to ask?" She shoved her hand into her pocket and pulled out a small crumpled piece of paper. "Could you guys tell me where to find somebody named," she paused for a moment, squinting at the paper, "Er, Sev-er-us Snap? Oh, I mean, Snape?"
Harry, Hermione, and Ron looked around at each other again, exchanging even more confused looks. "Well, his classroom is down in the dungeons," said Hermione, wiping the look off her face, "He'll probably be down there later. He's usually in here for breakfast, but I don't see him."
Samantha suddenly looked angry. "You guys think you're so funny, trying to confuse me! Well, I'll just find him on my own then!" And with that, she jerked up from her seat and stormed away from the Gryffindor table.