One
A swirl of stars
For once, Harry Potter was up early, sitting having his breakfast with Hermione whose cheeks were flushing pink with happiness that someone else decided to revise early for their OWLs that were coming up in less than a few months time. However, Harry had no interest in revising, even though the thought of OWLs made him feel queasy, as a particular rumour had been drifting around the school throughout the previous evening. He noticed with a smile, that many more boys had decided to rise earlier than normal for a Saturday morning. Most would have spent their mornings lazing about in beds and the dormitory. But, this morning many were wide awake and chatting excitedly to their friends and although a few looked slightly sleepy (including Neville who was snoring loudly under the Daily Prophet) nearly all were beaming.
According to Katie Bell, a couple of students had snuck out of their dormitories last night and came across some teachers talking about five students that were changing schools due to their lack of enjoyment at Beuxbatons. By the end of the night, the rumour had changed totally: Lee was convinced the five girls were supermodels, Dean had heard that they didn't like the fact it was an all girls school and were in need of some male friends (Harry guessed this was the reason why all the boys were up) and Ginny was sure that the girls were Veela or shape shifters by the time she went to bed.
Ron gazed helplessly at the grand doors, waiting for the girls to arrive. His spoon full of porridge was dripping onto his lap, yet he hardly noticed. Hermione sighed.
"These girls will just be a rumour, Ron," she snapped and Ron flashed her a puzzled look.
"What?" Ron mumbled. "You mean I got out of bed this early for nothing? I mean, this time, it's not normal for people to be awake at this time!"
"Excuse me," Hermione replied snippily. "I get up at this time every Saturday so I can get my homework done therefore having more time for revision. You two need to concentrate on your exams more. Especially you, Ronald."
"Shut up, you two!" Harry snapped. He was sick of the pair arguing over nothing. Plus, Hermione's dull words on revision dampened the excitement of the girls. Somehow, he didn't think it would dampen them too much.
Harry was just deciding about having another bowl of porridge even though his stomach was bulging with food, just to keep the excitement from exploding out of him, a gust of wind whipped through the Great Hall. Newspapers and books were torn from hands as the air flung them about. Hermione squealed when her Revision Notebook was ripped from her hold and Neville awoke with a start as his newspaper fluttered strangely around his head.
The strength of the wind seemed to grow. Pupils were holding on to the tables and benches to themselves being blown away by the breeze. Food bowls were flung across the hall, smashing off walls. Plates, cups, cutlery and even a pair of glasses were whirring around in spirals and circles before crashing into something that got in their path.
Hermione screamed and Ron grabbed onto her arm as her legs swung above her head. Harry jumped up and together he and Ron tried to pull Hermione down.
There was a strange sound; almost like whooshing sounds and their was a great flash of colour and tiny purple stars floated around forming a spiral that went from above the hall right down to the floor. The pupils looked up in awe as a girl suddenly appeared at the top of the spiral. She grabbed onto the stars and slipped down them as though she was sliding down a staircase.
"Oh no," she gasped as she realised she was heading for the Gryffindor table. Picking up speed she hurtled down the star spiral and landed on the table in Ron's porridge bowl that he had attempted to hold onto. Porridge spurted in Ron's face and he looked angry for a second before realising who was sitting in his porridge bowl.
A tall girl with shoulder-length dark brown hair gazed back at him, nervously biting her lip. She wasn't wearing normal school uniform; she had on lush dress robes that were the same colour as the stars. She took out her wand, gave it a quick flick and Ron's face and her robes cleared. She wedged herself out of the bowl, hurriedly refilled it and elegantly strode off of the table.
She walked along the stone floor to Professor Dumbledore who beamed at her and shook her hand. Whispering a few words to her he turned and looked at the ceiling. The stars were changing colour (silver this time) and a new girl was rushing down them. She had incredibly long, flowing hair that whipped around her as she rode down the stars. Her landing, however, wasn't so great; she was coming down at such great a speed, she ended up crashing through the Ravenclaw table, which looked very painful.
"Smooth," the first girl laughed and all the Hogwarts students turned to look at her. She turned pink as the eyes gazed at her. The second girl too cleaned up the mess amazingly and went to stand beside her friend. The eyes peered at her silver robes that glittered in the light.
Three more girls followed. Each of them had a spectacular landing; the third that had pearl blue robes and stars landed on none other than Draco Malfoy's lap; the fourth who had shocking pink robes and stars landed in a handstand beside Professor Snape who looked extremely disgruntled and the last (who had a golden star swirl and gold robes) tried to grab onto Nearly Headless Nick, failed but was thankfully caught by Neville and Dean.
Once all five had made spectacular entrances and cleaned up the mess, Professor Dumbledore coughed politely to the students.
"Hogwarts, I would like to introduce you to our exchange students. They shall be staying with us throughout this term and in case some of you don't know, five sixth years will be going to Beuxbatons and unfortunately boys, these have to be girls."
Dumbledore waited for a moan but the boys were all whispering and grinning to each other, happy they would not be taken away from the five new girls.
"The girls that have decided to visit Beuxbatons know who they are and will leave this afternoon. There will be a few excitements, shall we say, for welcoming our guests. The girls will be sorted into houses using our traditional method; the sorting hat and slotted into classes that way. The Sorting will take place tomorrow evening and there will be a small feast."
There were mumbles of happiness and Dumbledore beamed at the students.
"We will also be holding a Spring Ball for our new students to get a taste of how we hold balls here. Also, I would like to think that five boys would be kind enough to accompany the girls to be polite. There will be a number of other surprises in store but that is all to be revealed at a later date. Now, I want our new students to introduce themselves to Hogwarts."
The five looked at each other worriedly. They hadn't counted on making a speech in front of the hole of Hogwarts.
"Well….?" Dumbledore encouraged them and the first girl who had arrived gulped and took a step forward…….
