Title: We're all Human
Author: Harith
Beta: absentmindedgenius
Rating: PG
Characters: A few made up characters of mine, but a lot are from the JKR's story.
Disclaimer: sigh sorry to tell you, but I do not own anything associated with Harry Potter, it all belongs to Jo.


Chapter 1- The beginning

I can remember the day we met as if it were yesterday. I was staring out of the window. A moving van was next door. I was five years old at the time.

"Oh, Mum, can I go see the new neighbors please?" I begged.

"Sure, but make sure you stay out of their way!" my mother warned.

I put on my shoes, and headed out the door. I watched as the movers hauled everything in the house. TThere was never any sign that a TV or any electronics were brought in. Most muggle have those sorts of things. Instead there were things like racing brooms. I even saw a part of a picture that was uncovered- it was moving- this had to be another wizarding family. Another car pulled up, it was the family. I hid behind a near-by bush, and watched anxiously to see if there were any kids my age. I was in luck, the backdoor opened and a boy came outside, he looked the same age as me. The boy had curly, blonde hair. It looked as if he had just woken up. I swallowed hard and I, a skinny girl with straight, red hair moved out of hiding. The boy noticed me, and came over.

"Hi, I'm Kiley. I live over there," I pointed to my house, "What's your name?"

"Josh," he said. I saw a bit of mischief in his eyes, he grinned happily at me.

This was our first meeting. It was also the beginning of our friendship. Over the next six years we were inseparable, and we were usually getting into some kind of trouble.

Josh and I went through so much together. I remember when Josh's father died of cancer.
He locked himself in his room for days. I was the only person he would let inside. It killed me inside seeing him like that, I was used to seeing him happy, and giggling. Even later, after he had accepted that his father was gone, a part of him was still missing.

Besides the bad memories, we also shared good times together. One that really sticks out in my mind is when I got my yellow labrador, Muffin. That day was filled with so much fun. We chased her around the yard until she collapsed, after which Josh and I laid down on the ground next to her and laughed. When we were small, everything seemed funny.

Our friendship was told mostly throughout the summer, once school was let out. No matter what happened during the summer, we always managed to be at each other's houses every day. Josh was always mischievous , always wanting to get into trouble,
while I was the sensible one. I was always talking him out of the trouble he wanted to get us into. We were a great pair, like peanut butter and jelly. Sometimes we were total opposites, but we were always the best of friends.

Six years later, I got my letter from Hogwarts. The first person I went to go see was Josh.
I knocked on the door, only to see Josh's mother. "Come on in, sweetheart," she said,
opening the door wider. I walked in, and ran up the stairs, turned left, went past one bedroom and turned right into Josh's room. I knew this house like the back of my hand, as I was here everyday. Sometimes I was here even more than at my own house.

I ran into Josh's room, and he said : "You got yours too?" he asked, without looking up.

"Gosh! Don't do that, I know we're close, but stop reading my mind!" I said, grinning.
"Do you think we can go to Diagon Alley together?"

"I hope so! Maybe we could go this afternoon? Are you doing anything?"

"Nope. Not that I can think of, anyway. I'll ask my mum, its such a nice day out, she'll probably agree to go."

"My mum went crazy when I got my letter this morning, she said something about me being all grown up, and then started sobbing."

I laughed loudly and then finally managed to say, "Yup. Same thing happened to me."

"Yeah, let's pray that we can go today."

"I'll go home and ask real quick- I'll be right back."

"Okay, I'll ask my mum too!" he yelled after me.

I ran home and asked my mother, soon it was all settled. We were going to go later that this afternoon, by floo powder, it was easier this way.

I walked into the fireplace, grabbed some floo powder, and said, "Diagon Alley!" I loved the sensation of going past all of the other fireplaces, it made me sick, but it went so fast,
almost like a rollercoaster. All of a sudden I came to a stop, and I waited for everyone else. Next came Josh, then his mother, and then mine.

"Everyone settled?" said Mrs. Hanson, Josh's mother. Everyone nodded, and we started off shopping. After about two hours, we finally had everything - robes, hats, cloaks,
dragon hide gloves, books- the whole nine yards, except for our wands. We decided to save this for last, because it was most exciting. Josh and I walked into Ollivanders,
beaming.

The store seemed quite small because over half of the shop was behind the counter, where all the wands were. There were rows and rows of dusty wand boxes that were stacked on top of each other. The rows seemed to go back forever. I felt different in this shop, as if there were some sort of hidden magic stored within the walls. I searched the rows of wands, my mind wandering. I almost fell over in shock when I saw a man with wide, pale eyes looking right into mine, but I hope I didn't show it.

"Hello, Mr. Ollivander, we're here to get our wands!" I said, excitedly.

"Well of course, what else would you be doing in my shop?" he asked, and then laughed.
"Who's first?"

"Josh, you can go first, I can wait.. I think." I said, smiling.

After he measured Josh, Mr. Ollivander went in the back, and came out with a wand.
Josh gave it a wave, and green sparks came out of it. He had got his wand on the first try!
It was 7 and 1/2 inches long with the strings of a dragon's heart and was made out of cedar.

"Alright, your turn, next, Ms..."

"Adams."

"Ah, right, Ms. Adams." First of all, he measured me up and down, as he did with Josh.
The first two wands that Mr. Ollivander pulled out were complete failures. Mr.
Ollivander snatched them away from me just as soon as I set it back down on the counter.
The third wand I tried out, I got red sparks to come out of it, and I was happy. I particularly liked this wand, it was 10 inches long, made out of willow, and had the hair of a unicorn. Josh and I paid for our wands, and came out of the shop.

"Wow, yours is so wicked, Josh, I mean.. dragon's heart strings!" I said.

"Yeah, yours is wicked too, it really fits you."

We kept walking, and we saw the Quidditch shop. Josh slowly lured us to the cabinet with the nimbus two-thousand. We both pressed our faces against the glass.

"I really wish I could have one.. too bad first years can't play Quidditch," Josh said,
frowning. "Next year, though, I will play!"

I laughed at Josh. "I'm sure you will." Across the street I saw the pet shop. "Ooh, lets go see if we can try and convince our mums go get us an owl." Josh nodded.

We went over to our mums and begged, until they gave in. Now, looking back, I think they wanted us to get an owl so that we could send letters to them anyway, because this would be our first time away from home. We headed across the street to Eeylops Owl Emporium. Once I stepped through the door, it felt like I was in a whole different world,
where owls were the only species of animal. There were so many different breeds of owl everywhere you looked.

I wandered to the left side of the store and browsed through the selection of owls until I came to a snowy owl. I gasped. She was fast asleep with her beak wedged under her wing.
I stuck my fingers through the small bars of the cage and stroked her feathers. The owl woke suddenly and hooted angrily, as if she hadn't wanted to be woken. I looked at her bright, yellow eyes, they completed her look. She was the perfect owl.

Josh came up from behind me and put his hand on my shoulder.

"Wow, she is really pretty." I nodded.

"Come look at the owl I found! He's really wicked." He led me way across the room to another owl. This owl was about two times as big as the snowy owl I had been looking at.
He was an eagle owl. He looked as if he were going to be sent off into war, rather than be someone's pet. I glanced down at the owl's talons- they were razor sharp. I figured I knew the reason Josh had picked this owl was because he was different, not like any other owl in the shop. Josh had always been a rebel.

"I like him, he's cool."

Josh picked up the cage while I went to the snowy owl's cage. We pushed our way through the crowd, who was also looking at the owls. We placed our owls up on the counter to pay.

The woman behind the counter looked as if she could have been an owl herself. She wore wide-rimmed glasses that magnified her bright, green eyes two times the normal size. I almost laughed at the sight of her, but caught myself just in time. Josh and I paid for our owls and left the store grinning ear to ear.
The next couple of weeks went past very slowly, it seemed as if September the first was never going to get here. I couldn't wait, I was excited to be going to Hogwarts, and each day I crossed off a day on my calendar. Finally, there was only one day left. I slept over at Josh's house. We almost stayed up all night chatting. It felt like we were 6 again, and we were waiting until Christmas the next morning. A little after two A.M. we both drifted off to sleep, dreaming happily of the next day.

At seven o'clock sharp, we got a knock on the door.

"Time to get up!"

Mrs. Hanson said. We both jumped up out of bed, and started chatting excitedly. Mrs.
Hanson was driving us to Kings Cross Station in a couple of hours, and we still had to pack. Once we got dressed, we headed downstairs for a huge breakfast. After breakfast, I went next door to my house, and said good-bye to my mother and father, and then got everything packed. I double, and triple checked that I hadn't forgotten anything, then I grabbed my owl, who I had named Lisa, and put her in her cage. I then headed back to Josh's house so that his mother could take them to Kings Cross Station. Two anxious eleven-year-olds got in the back seat of the car.

I looked at Josh and asked, "What house do you think you're going to be in?"

"Not sure, I just hope I'm with you. What about you?"

"I'm not sure, either, I just hope its Gryffindor." Just then we pulled into the train station. I looked at my ticket, confused. "Platform 9 3/4? Where is that?"

"Between platforms 9 and 10!" Mrs. Hanson said.

"But.. how do we get there?" I asked.

"You run through the barrier between them."

"Ooh... wait.. what? You run through them? Into the wall?" I asked.

Mrs. Hanson laughed. "Yes, its quite easy." She seemed confident, so I trusted her.

"Josh, you first." I said, pushing him in front of me.

Josh smirked, and said, "See you on the other side, Kiley." Josh ran through the wall. I rubbed my eyes, just to make sure what I had seen really happened.

"Ok, you next," Mrs. Hanson said smiling. Before I knew it, I was running right towards it, any minute now I was going to hit the wall, and feel like an idiot. I got to the wall, and.. I went through it! I saw Josh off to the right, and I walked towards him.

"You never knew about platform 9 3/4?" he asked.

"Nope, my parents never told me about it."

"Weird. Alright, lets get a seat." I followed Josh through the monstrous crowd. It took us a while to find an empty compartment. Once we did Josh waved good-bye to his mum.
We sat there for a while until we were interrupted by two other anxious first-years.

"Mind if we join you?" asked a black boy, who opened the compartment door. Josh and I both nodded. He was followed by a sandy-blonde-haired boy. Each of them smiled and sat down across from us.

"I'm Seamus," said the sandy blonde, "and this is Dean."

I opened my mouth, but before I could Josh answered. "I'm Josh, and this is Kiley."

"Nice to meet you two," said Dean. There was a few minutes silence. I stared out the window and watched the scenery flash by, thinking about Hogwarts. I snapped out of my daydream when Seamus said something.

"So.. umm.. do you like quidditch, Josh?"

Josh looked as if he were daydreaming as well, and attracted his attention back to the compartment. "Huh? Quidditch? Yeah, it's definitely the best sport around."

Then Dean chirped in. "What? Quidditch? No way! Soccer is the sport to play!" I sighed and direct my attention back out the window. I watched the countryside pass by while the boys talked. After a while, the scenery seemed to blend together into one big blur. I could feel my eyes getting heavier and heavier. What seemed like not much longer later, I could felt something rubbing against my shoulder and something being yelled in the distance.

"Kiley? Kiley! You should be getting up now, we're almost there, and you're the only one who hasn't changed into your robes." I sighed, yawned, and stretched. The boys went out of the compartment as I changed into my robes. I told them when I was done, so that they could come back in.

Not too long after I had changed, the train come to a complete stop. Josh told me to leave my things on the train, and to follow him. I stroked Lisa's feathers and said good-bye to her, then followed Josh out of the train.

"Firs' years! Over here!"

Josh and I followed the voice. There was an overly large man that towered over us. He had a shaggy black beard, and black hair to match. It looked like his hair was trying to escape from his head, there was hair going in every direction. He lead us to the boats,
and Josh, Seamus, Dean and I got into the same boat. I gasped, and grabbed Josh's arm as I saw a tentacle come out of the lake, but he didn't seem to notice.

Seamus turned to me and said: "Eh, don't worry about that, its just the squid, he won't hurt you." I didn't really want to believe him, but I released Josh's arm. He was clearly enjoying this. We got to shore, and disembarked.

We followed the crowd, until we came to the steps of the gigantic castle. I heard a distant,
sharp, three knocks on the large door that was in front of us. It immediately swung open and reviled what I thought to be a professor who had her black hair pulled into a tight bun. She had square glasses and was wearing emerald-green robes. Everyone quieted down

"The firs' years, Professor McGonagall." said Hagrid.

"Thank you, Hagrid. I will take them from here." replied Professor McGonagall.

We headed up the steps of the castle and traveled through the two large doors that led into the Great Hall . Everyone was chatting excitedly, and was wondering what was going to happen next.

Professor McGonagall lead us into a chamber that was off to the left side of the hall.
Everyone squeezed into the small room together.

"Welcome to Hogwarts. The start of term banquet will begin shortly, but before you take your seats in the Great Hall, you will be sorted into your houses. The Sorting is a very important ceremony because, while you are here, your house will be something like your family within Hogwarts. You will have classes with the rest of your house, sleep in your house dormitory, and spend free time in your house common room."

"The four houses are called Gryffindor, Hufflepuff, Ravenclaw and Slytherin." Professor McGonagall continued, "Each house has it's own noble history and each has produced outstanding witches and wizards. While you're at Hogwarts your triumphs will earn your house points, while any rule breaking will loose points. At the end of the year, the house with the most points is awarded the house cup, a great honor. I hope each of you will be a credit to whichever house becomes yours."

"The Sorting Ceremony will take place in a few minutes in front of the rest of the school.
I suggest you all smarten yourselves up as much as you can while you are waiting."

She paused for a moment, looking at a few of the students in front where we couldn't see,
and then continued. " I shall return when we are ready for you. Please wait quietly."

Once she left, everyone started chatting again. I heard someone in front of me mumble something about having to wrestle a troll to see what house you were going to be in. I gulped, and hoped it wasn't going to be that hard.

All of a sudden about 20 ghosts streamed through the wall behind us. I gasped, but calmed down once I found out they were friendly. They started to talk to some of the other first years, so I turned back to Josh.

"Wow.. the castle is huge, how will we ever find our classes?" I asked, amazed. I knew the castle was going to be big, but it was four times as big as I what I expected.

"Oh, I'm sure you'll get used to it," came a voice from behind us. I jumped, and gasped once again, and grabbed Josh's arm, turning him around. It was one of the ghosts.

"Oh, don't worry about him, its only Nearly Headless Nick, the Gryffindor ghost.. didn't your parents tell you anything?" said Josh, laughing at me.

I shook my head, feeling stupid, and said to Nearly Headless Nick, "Erm.. yeah, I hope so." He smiled and floated off.

Suddenly the door swung open. Professor McGonagall appeared again. "Move along now. The Sorting Ceremony is about to start. Now, form a line." I quickly followed Josh who stood behind Dean. We walked back out of the chamber and into the Great HallJosh pointed up, and I tilted my head back. The ceiling was pitch black. Small, white stars completed what looked like the night sky.

I heard a whisper close behind me from a girl, this time. "It's bewitched to look like the sky outside. I read about it in Hogwarts, A History. I sighed happily. Professor McGonagall put a stool in front of us. I stood on my tip-toes to get a better view. She placed an old, patched, worn hat on top of the stool. The hat sort of shook a tad, and then opened its mouth and started singing. A few first years in front of the line jumped back Once the song was over, I understood. We only have to try on the hat. Good, no fighting trolls today.

"Adams, Kiley!" she called. I swallowed hard. I was trembling and sweating at the same time. Why did my last name have to begin with an A? Why did I have to be first? Why couldn't someone else been first? I took a deep breath and sat down on the chair while the talking hat was placed on my head. It slipped down over my forehead. It was a bit too big.

The hat whispered in my ear, "You've got a great mind, but you also show courage, and friendship means much to you. Hmm.. seems like..GRYFFINDOR!" I sighed in relief and jumped off the stool. Whoops and hollers came from the Gryffindor table, I went and sat down at the end, so I could see everyone else who got sorted.

My mind blocked out what the hat was saying, I was so nervous, and I hoped that Josh would get sorted into Gryffindor as well. My mind was racing, I could barely hear myself think. Occasionally I would hear "HUFFLEPUFF, RAVENCLAW! SLYTHERIN! or GRYFFINDOR," but I never paid attention to who it was sorting.

Suddenly, after what seemed like an eternity, my mind came out of its daze and I heard Professor McGonagall bellow, "Hanson, Josh!" I picked my head up off the table, and watched nervously as he walked to the sorting hat. I remembered when we had first met.
He had the same look of mischief in his eyes as he had had when I first met him. He smiled the same half smile he always wore.
"It seems you should be in.."