Chapter One

A New Friend

Within a week of being back at Hogwarts, Megan was already stressing about her homework. She sat at the desk in her dormitory, tapping the feathered end of her quill on her parchment. The essay was on Medieval Witch Burnings, which was taking a long time because Megan had no interest in History of Magic. She aimlessly flicked through one of the heavy books from the library, but her eyes skimmed blankly over the yellowing pages.

Eventually she could bear it no longer and stood up, walking circles around the dormitory. The room was nice and airy but even this couldn't calm Megan.

Megan felt like she was only average compared to the rest of her friends. There were six of them, including her. Cho Chang was in the centre of the group, and as she was a Quidditch star, was let off for not being as academic as the rest of them. She was very pretty and had gleaming black hair. Then there was Salma, the most intelligent out of the girls, who was also very beautiful and, above all, a very good, kind friend. Iona was also a Quidditch player; she was a beater and strongly built, which gave her an advantage – as well as this she was talented at Defence Against the Dark Arts. She had flaming ginger hair and many freckles dotted across her friendly face. Georgina was tiny with mouse brown hair; she was amazing at Transfiguration and sometimes overly studious. Marietta was probably the least academic out of them all, even including Megan, but was a huge gossip and led many entertaining conversations, though Megan couldn't bear how mean she was.

Megan sighed, twiddling a lock of her hair. She stared in the mirror critically at herself. Although she did not think she was pretty, this wasn't true. Her looks earned her many admiring glances from the boys of Hogwarts that she simply missed when she was giggling with the rest of the girls.

She had natural white-blonde straight hair down past her ribs, and very pale, unblemished skin to match. Her eyes were ice-blue and stood out in her pale, pointed face. She had a small nose and very full, pale pink lips. As well as being pretty, she was tall and slim and moved very gracefully. These factors caused her friends to nickname her the 'Ice Queen.'

Megan sighed again, and left the dormitory, unable to work any longer. However, there was nobody in the relaxed Ravenclaw common room, just some Seventh Years working hard for their NEWTS. Megan couldn't even begin to think about examinations when she had so much homework to do, so she left the common room and went for a walk around the school.

Not knowing where her friends were, she wandered about aimlessly, then sat down in the Courtyard when she couldn't find them in their usual hang-out spots.

"Loner," a large Slytherin she recognised as Marcus Flint hissed at her as he walked past with his gang.

"I'd rather be a loner than a Troll lookalike," Megan replied, causing the Slytherin to narrow his eyes meanly at her.

"Watch out, that smart mouth may get you in trouble someday," he said to her, before leaving with his friends.

"Hello," a voice said beside her suddenly. Megan turned and saw that it was Hermione, clutching some homework.

"I'm sorry, I didn't mean to scare you," Hermione said hastily. "I just thought that Marcus was giving you a hard time so I came to support you if needed."

"Thank you," Megan said gratefully. "The Slytherin's are always making rude comments towards me, nothing new."

"So how are you getting on?" Hermione asked. "The lessons are great this year, aren't they?"

"Well..." Megan began. And suddenly everything poured out. About her friends, too much homework, not being good enough... Hermione listened without interrupting, then stated her opinions.

"Megan, of course you are good enough! Except from Salma, you are the best all-round student out of the girls!"

"But I only get A's and E's," Megan argued. "That's not amazing!"

"Better than most people," Hermione pointed out. "Also, you stand out in your group of friends. All they do is laugh all the time and gossip. I feel that there's something different about you. You're more interesting than they are."

"Thanks," said Megan. "Maybe something exciting will happen. For now, I feel like I'm being overshadowed by Cho and the other girls." She had never expressed her opinions out loud before, but it felt good to get them out in the open.

"Well, if it gets too much, then you can always hang out with us," Hermione said, smiling at her.

After giving her some tips for getting even better grades and motivating herself to do even the most boring homework tasks, she left to go to the library. Megan sat in the Courtyard with the sun shining gently down upon her, and thought carefully about her advice. Then, she left to complete her homework to a much higher ability than she would have done before.

A/N This is based on a dream I had recently and is only the introduction to the story! Please read and review!