Maria
The Beginning
"Bye sweetie! Have fun and- ouch!" Maria's father called as she approached the barrier. She looked back to see that a tall, freckly boy with fiery red hair had just smashed into her dad. He looked quite excited.
"Oh my, are you a wizard?" she heard him whisper loudly to the boy, who was apologizing profusely. Maria grinned and turned around to walk nervously through the barrier. Her father loved everything to do with wizards. The day she had gotten her letter from Marehams School of Magic, he actually had a mild heart attack from his excitement.
Maria pulled her trunk behind her onto platform 9 3/4, glancing around nervously. Everywhere she looked, she saw people calling out to each other, "Oh save me a seat!", or, "Brilliant to see you again!". Maria remembered saying the same things every new school year to her old friends, Jessica and Kelly. She sighed and wished that her mom hadn't decided to move her family to England...
"Quick, the train's getting ready to go!" she heard a voice say. Indeed it was. The whistle emitted a high pitched scream, and smoke was billowing around her.
She hastily pulled her trunk behind her and boarded, glancing around. "Oh, where am I going to sit?" she thought anxiously . Maria wandered through the compartments, but every one she passed were full. Finally she came to the end and looked opened the door cautiously.
Inside were two boys and a pretty girl, laughing about something. The tallest one was about 6' 2", with freckles and red hair. I realized that he was the one that crashed into my dad. The other boy was
5' 9, and had sexy, untidy, jet-black hair that contrasted greatly with his emerald green eyes. Finally, the girl was 5' 6", with staight, light brown hair and warm brown eyes, which were now focused on her.
"Oh! You must be Maria Walker! Dumbledore told me you were coming!" she said brightly. She went to open the compartment door wider and grabbed her suitcase.
"Locomotor trunk." she said, flicking her wand upwards. The trunk floated up into the overhead compartment easily and the girl smiled with white, even teeth.
"Well, come in. We won't bite! Well, Crookshanks might." she said, gesturing to the seat beside her. A ginger cat was sitting in it, but jumped off to let her sit down, then lept into her lap.
"Oh! He likes you!" the girl beamed. The boys were watching Maria with open interest.
"Oh, I suppose I should introduce myself. I'm Hermione Granger, this gawking idiot is Ron Weasley," she said, pointing at the redhead, "And the other guy is our celebrity, Harry Potter." I smiled at him, and he looked slightly pink, smiling back. Then the words sunk in.
"Harry Potter? The Harry Potter?" I gasped. He laughed, as though he was used to it.
"Er- yeah. I am. I didn't know people from Canada had heard of me." he said amusedly.
"How did you know-" I started, but Hermione stopped me.
"By your accent. It makes you sound quite different." she explained. I nodded, a bit surprised by this piece of news. I knew, of course, that I had a Canadian accent, but I didn't realize how obvious it was. Hermione turned to Harry swiftly.
"And of course she knew about you! You're Harry Potter!" she said exasperatedly. Ron snorted.
"He knows that Mione." Harry grinned and faced me.
"So, you're from Canada? Why are you here at Hogwarts then?" he asked curiously. I cleared my throat nervously, his bright green eyes were so wonderfully distracting.
"Um- yeah. My dad had a job offering as a professor at some university or another. It was 'the oppourtunity of a lifetime.'" I said, slightly bitterly. They nodded sympathetically. "I came from a entirely muggle family, except my mom, my dad was so happy, he had a slight heart attack. He's fascinated by wizards."
"That's funny. My dad is nuts about muggles! If they ever got together, he'd probably leave my mum and propose." Ron said. We all burst out laughing at this.
"So, do you know what house you're in yet?" Harry asked. His voice had just the right amount of huskiness in it, and my knees would have given way if I had been standing up.
"I don't know yet. I still need to be sorted." I said, thinking back to my Hogwarts letter. I needed to go up on a platform with a bunch of first years. "Can you tell me about the houses?" I asked.
"Oh no, we shouldn't really, you'd have a biased-" she started, but Ron interrupted.
"Oh sure! There's Ravenclaw, full of little smart-asses." he started. Hermione rolled her eyes. "Hermione could have been in that house." he said, smirking at her. Hermione just ignored him.
"Then there's Hufflepuff." he continued. "They're the goody-goodies of the school. And then, there's Gryffindor. The most wickedly awesome, brilliant house there is!" he said. Harry was grinning and nodding fervently. Even Hermione was smiling. I returned their smiles.
"So I guess you three are in Gryffindor then?" I said, laughing a little. "So, what's the last house?" Ron shuddered theatrically.
"Slytherin. They're the slimiest, nastiest, little bastards I've ever had the displeasure to know. And that git-" he started, getting worked up, but he was interrupted by a smooth, drawling voice at the door.
"Talking about me again Weasle? Don't you have anything better to do? Just because you don't get any action over the summer to speak of doesn't mean that you need to talk about me to fill your pathetic silences." I looked to the direction of the voice and was momentarily shocked. It had come from a young man with white blond hair falling elegantly into his stormy gray eyes. Ron turned red.
"Speak of the ferret. What makes you so sure that I didn't get any action?" he said angrily. The handsome blond looked Ron up and down, smirking.
"If you look in the mirror, you might find out." he said haughtily.
"Have you looked in a mirror lately Malfoy?" Harry growled. Malfoy smirked.
"I don't need to look in mirror to know how good I look." he said. Harry grinned mischievously. He pulled out his wand quick as lightning and muttered something under his breath. A beam of blotchy red light shot out from the end of his wand and hit the guy, apparently Malfoy, square in the face. Angry red zits erupted on his pale face. Ron and Hermione roared with laughter.
"No kidding!" Harry said, laughing along with them. Maria was torn between laughing and rushing to help the attractive young man. He was glaring at Harry. He took out his wand and tapped his face with it. The terrible acne disappeared, and his face returned to it's original milky perfection. Harry looked at Malfoy, wand still out, grinning.
"Oh Potter, I'm not going to attack you. Yet." he said, then his attention turned to Maria.
"Ah, who is this?" he said, looking at her curiously.
"What's it to you?" Hermione said coldly. Malfoy's eyes flickered to her.
"Looking good Granger. I'd snog you, but I wouldn't want my lips to get all dirtied up." he said cooly. Maria glared at him.
"How dare he?" she thought angrily. Ron stood up, wand in hand, but Hermione motioned for him to sit down.
"Even if you wanted me, you couldn't have me." she said, every word dripping in ice. He just smirked.
"Don't flatter yourself Mudblood. I'm asking about your little friend here." he said, looking back at Maria, who was now seething with rage.
"Don't flatter yourself. Just get out." she said icily. He looked taken aback, but his eyes were now alight, like he was on the trail of a conquest. Like he was glad to have a challenge.
"As you wish." he said, winking sexily as he left. Maria mentally slapped herself at the quiver she felt at his smirk combined with that wink...
"Nice one, Walker!" Harry said, grinning.
"Brilliant!" Ron said enthusiastically. Hermione was beaming at her, and she realized that these were people that she could be friends with.
"Th- thank you." she said, blushing from embarrassment combined with that adorable crooked smile from Harry.
They spent the rest of the train ride talking and joking, looking forward to the minute that they would be stepping back into the Great Hall.
A/N: Sorry, I really make Ron say bloody too much. Review please!
