Chapter 1
I laughed as I applied muggle hair gel to my long curly dark brown hair, with artificial grown-out highlights. Jez says she wishes she had my hair and I told her that she was crazy it took so much work to make it look good and half the hair stylists out there don't even know how to cut it properly.
"I can't believe we're going to the legendary English school of magic! Hogwarts!" Jez exclaims.
"Me either! Can you believe professor Jackson actually picked us? I think she just doesn't want us making trouble there for a while," I tell her.
"Yeah probably. I mean, we have done some pretty outrageous stuff," she laughed and I joined thinking of the times we snuck out at night and hung teacher underwear on the doorknobs of their classrooms and other stunts we managed to pull.
"But we have done some good stuff," I remind her. We had stopped some pretty vicious death eater acts back in NY.
"Boy will Harry Potter be surprised. I bet he thinks he's the only one who can keep them bad guys under control," Jez laughs again.
"Yeah, well he's in for a big surprise." I say slyly.
"Girls! Come on!" screeches professor Grimes. She had to accompany us to England until she saw us safely on the Hogwarts express.
We groan.
"At least it's shopping!" I say.
"Even shopping is horrible with old Grimes." moans Jez.
"Come on!" I laugh.
We have to get our school supplies for Hogwarts and Grimes has to take us there too.
We grab our bags and step out into the wooden hallway of the Leaky Cauldron.
"Good girls," Grimes praises us for coming out of the room as if we're idiots. or dogs.
"Do you really have to come everywhere with us Professor G? I mean we do have our cells. We could call ya' if anything goes wrong," Jez complains.
"I don't trust these muggle devices and anyway I could lose my job if I'm caught letting you two roam the streets of London alone," Grimes responds.
"Yeah whatever. But like in the stores, we don't all have to be, like, joined at the hip do we?" Jez keeps pushing.
"No, we don't. As long as you stay in the same store you can go off by your self," Grimes says.
I think she really can't wait to be rid of us, but you-know-who's back so everyone's on high alert. We'd probably walk around London by ourselves if that idiot had stayed a rodent instead of turning into a somewhat-human form.
"Ah!" I gasp as I step out into the bright sun light.
"Whoa! It's bright out here!" Jez says.
Jez and I squint, trying to get used to the sun.
"Where to first?" Grimes asks.
"Where ever." Jez says.
"How 'bout Flourish and Blotts?" I suggest.
"Great," says Grimes.
"Whatever" Jez is putting on her attitude, just incase anyone thinks she wants to be walking around with what could be mistaken for her mother.
We stroll into Flourish and Blotts and me and Jez head for the back of the store, taking Grimes by surprise. We got her figured out a long time ago. She always tries to be casually, so she wouldn't be caught dead chasing two teenagers to the back of a book store. So grimes picks up a copy of Witch Weekly from a shelf of magazines.
"We got her this time, but next time make a sharp right. She'll think we're gonna head for the back again so it'll work," I tell Jez.
"Yeah, good idea. How're we supposed to pick up guys with a teacher tagging along?" Jez says.
We look for the books on the list.
"Oh! We got one," Jez says.
"Where?" I ask. Jez has spotted a hot guy.
"There," Jez rolls her eyes in the direction of a cute red headed guy. The guys behind Jez so, I'm giving her the play-by-play of what's going on behind her.
"Okay. He's talking with a black kid and- Oh my gosh! He has a twin!" I exclaim.
"Turns out there's two hot red heads?" She smiles slowly in the same way she does before she kicks my but in racing.
"Looks like it."
"And it looks like there gonna be ours," We smile at each other. "Okay. I'm going to casually bump into one of 'em. And then you're gonna follow me," I explain.
"Wait! Why do I have to follow you?" Jez asks.
"Because," I say and before she can protest head toward the red heads.
My shoulder hits one of theirs gently as I walk past.
"Oops! Sorry," I say.
"That's alright," he says with a cute British accent. "I'm Fred Weasley, by the way." He introduces himself.
By this time Jez is behind me.
"And I'm George," his twins says.
"And I'm Lee Jordan." (The black kid)
"I'm Aziza, Izzy for short, and this is my friend Jezebel, Jez for short," I explain.
"Are you tourists? That's no British accent," says George.
"No. We're foreign exchange students, from New York," I smile. I'm proud to say I'm a New Yorker, New York is definatley one of the coolest places on Earth.
"Oooh. We've heard about you," Lee says.
"Yeah. You're coming to Hogwarts, right?" George asks.
"Yep. Do you guys go to Hogwarts?" Jez jumps in.
"Yes, we're in Gryffindor. Do you know what house you're in yet?" asks Fred.
I elbow Jez and nod toward the approaching grime. (get it? Like her name's Grimes and, she is grime)
"Uh. no. But we gotta go see ya' round," Jez finishing quickly and we hurry to drag Grimes out before we're seen with her too long.
We make an escape quickly and head over to Madame Malcolm's Robes for All Occasions.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~hours of shopping later~~~~~~~~~~~~~
"That wasn't too bad I guess," Me and Jez are back in our room in the Leaky Cauldron. Dinner's at 6 and its 4:30 now.
Jez stares at me. We didn't manage to avoid Grimes as much in the last couple of stores as in Flourish and Blotts.
The last place we were, we tried a new strategy (going in two opposite directions) and Grimes let her cool slip and screamed at us in front of the whole place.
"Anyway, Fred, George, and Lee were totally into us," I smiled my triumph smile.
She laughed.
"I wonder how old they are." Jez said.
"Probably about our age, right? Maybe a little older?" I said and sort of questioned.
"Oh! But they did get me thinking. What house are we going to be in?"
"Gryffindor, I hope. Then we can meet Harry."
We smiled at each other again. We're both kind of curious to meet this 'hero'. And see if he's really as great as everyone else thinks. I mean, sure, he's stopped you-know-who one-on-one a few times. But has he ever faced 10 or 12 death eater assassins? Jez and I have.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~September 1~platform9 ¾ ~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Grimes is trying to follow us on to the train.
"We can handle it, believe us! And plus, your assignment is to see us safely onto the train. Then we're Hogwarts responsibility!" Jez was trying to avoid looking like a complete idiot having adults accompany us onto the train like we were 11 or something.
"Wave to me from the window," Grimes gave up.
"Sure!" Jez squealed.
We got on the train and, as we promised, waved from the window.
"Oh. this is great! We can totally reinvent ourselves before we get there," Jez tells me.
"What?" was anyone else confused by that?
"We can have a theme, like we could use new Yorker accents. or southern accents!! Oh! That'd be so much fun! 'How y'all doin'? So what do you want to do?"
"Jez, Jez, Jez," I roll my eyes at her, "one of us is gonna slip up eventually."
"Yeah. whatever. You're no fun!" She complains.
"Plus we already were ourselves around Fred, George, and Lee," I remind her.
"Whatever. How much time till the train leaves?" Jez wants to know.
"Half an hour. We're pretty early," I say.
"Great. I can catch up on my sleep," Jez rests her head against the window and closes her eyes.
I roll my eyes and pull out one of my new books. It's the transfiguration book for school.
I start reading and realize that this school might be a little more difficult then we're used to.
I was reading for about 20 minutes when the red heads and they're friend showed up.
"Izzy! Hey!" they greeted me.
One of the twins laughed. "Looks like Jez needed a nap."
They all took a seat across from me and Jez.
Another red headed guy, a bushy haired girl, and none other than Harry Potter were standing in the doorway to our car.
"Oh yeah. This is Ron, Harry and Hermoine," George introduced me to them.
"Hey, I'm Izzy," I smiled at them.
"Nice to meet you," The girl mumbled, "Come on guys, let's go."
"See you around," Ron said.
"Bye," Harry.
They left our car.
"I don't think they like me very much." I looked at the guys.
"Don't worry about it. They've been a little cautious and moody since last year." Fred reassured me. (Kind of)
"Oh. With that whole Voldemort thing?" I asked.
They flinched at his name.
"Yes, that whole-thing. I'm not sure about America but here we don't like saying his name," George explained.
I laughed. "Yeah not everyone uses his name in the U.S. either."
"Well, I'm just itching to use my wand. So." Fred pulled out his wand.
"What're you going to do?" I asked.
"Jez shouldn't sleep on trains in the presence of so many strangers," Fred laughed.
"staticicisum"
I started laughing. Jez's hair was standing straight up.
They had some fun making Jez's make-up run and other stuff.
"So is Ron your brother?" I asked the twins.
"Yeah. He's our younger brother," Fred informed me.
"He's in the 5th year at Hogwarts," George told me.
"What year are you guys in?" I asked.
"We're in year 7. Our last year." George pretended to cry on Lee's shoulder. A bit geeky.
"What year are you in?" Lee asked.
No use lying they'll find out when we get there anyway.
"I'm in year 5," I said.
"Jez too?" Fred asked.
"Yep."
"Two years isn't that long," Lee shrugged.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~At Hogwarts~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
I'm shaking Jez awake.
"Come on! Get up!" I demand.
"Huh.what. waffles???" Jez mumbles.
I roll my eyes.
"We're here," I say.
"What?" She's awake now.
"Why didn't you wake me up sooner?" uh, oh. She's annoyed. "Come on. Everyone else is already off," I say.
We leave our trunks on the train and head toward a giant guy telling people where to go.
"Um. excuse me?" I try to get the man's attention.
"Yes?" He asks.
"Me and Jez here are exchange students from the U.S. Where should we go?" I ask.
"Might as well come with the firs' years in the boats. It's 'ogwarts tradition, ya know?" He says.
"Yes actually. I read 'Hogwarts a History'," I say.
"I forgo' ter introduce meself. I'm Hagrid. The groundskeeper 'ere at 'ogwarts," He introduced himself.
"Nice to meet you," I say politely. Jez is still a little grumpy and sleepy.
"I'm gonna be up all night thanks to you," she whispers moodily.
"Worse things could happen," I say.
"Like what?" She asks.
"You could look in a mirror," I say and laugh. Fred and George didn't take the interesting charms off her, but no one was so impolite as to stare. For all they knew this was all the rage in New York. "Very funny," she glares at me.
That settles it. I'll let her find out by herself.
We road the boats to Hogwarts. I was really impressed by the castle. It's beautiful.
We came into the castle with the first years. Professor McGonagal told us to wait for after all the first years were sorted and then she would introduce us.
They finally finished the first years. They took like forever. Professor Dumbledore: "This year we are happy to have two 5th years from an academy in New York with us. Jezebel Jackson, and Aziza Albertson."
They all clapped and cheered. There were actually a lot of people at Hogwarts. I heard it was pretty hard to get into.
My name was first alphabetically so I stepped up to the sorting hat. It was old and tattered and I was surprised that when I sat on the stool and pulled it on over my eyes it started whispering!
"Hm. you seem jolly, you could be Hufflepuff. A little big headed- maybe Slytherin. Smart as well, you could be in Ravenclaw. But you're also quite brave. Very brave. You brake lots of rules I see I think you'll be a- GRYFFINDOR!"
The Gryffindor table erupted with cheers. I took off the hat and smiled at my new house. I sat down with Fred, George, Lee, Hermoine, Ron, and Harry. But no before giving Jez an encouraging smile. Her and I are like the same person she's definitely going to be a Gryffindor too.
Jez thought so too. She walked up to the stool and hat with the confidence that she would be a Gryffindor as well.
Jez slipped the hat on and in a spilt second it screamed "SLYTHERIN!"
I laughed as I applied muggle hair gel to my long curly dark brown hair, with artificial grown-out highlights. Jez says she wishes she had my hair and I told her that she was crazy it took so much work to make it look good and half the hair stylists out there don't even know how to cut it properly.
"I can't believe we're going to the legendary English school of magic! Hogwarts!" Jez exclaims.
"Me either! Can you believe professor Jackson actually picked us? I think she just doesn't want us making trouble there for a while," I tell her.
"Yeah probably. I mean, we have done some pretty outrageous stuff," she laughed and I joined thinking of the times we snuck out at night and hung teacher underwear on the doorknobs of their classrooms and other stunts we managed to pull.
"But we have done some good stuff," I remind her. We had stopped some pretty vicious death eater acts back in NY.
"Boy will Harry Potter be surprised. I bet he thinks he's the only one who can keep them bad guys under control," Jez laughs again.
"Yeah, well he's in for a big surprise." I say slyly.
"Girls! Come on!" screeches professor Grimes. She had to accompany us to England until she saw us safely on the Hogwarts express.
We groan.
"At least it's shopping!" I say.
"Even shopping is horrible with old Grimes." moans Jez.
"Come on!" I laugh.
We have to get our school supplies for Hogwarts and Grimes has to take us there too.
We grab our bags and step out into the wooden hallway of the Leaky Cauldron.
"Good girls," Grimes praises us for coming out of the room as if we're idiots. or dogs.
"Do you really have to come everywhere with us Professor G? I mean we do have our cells. We could call ya' if anything goes wrong," Jez complains.
"I don't trust these muggle devices and anyway I could lose my job if I'm caught letting you two roam the streets of London alone," Grimes responds.
"Yeah whatever. But like in the stores, we don't all have to be, like, joined at the hip do we?" Jez keeps pushing.
"No, we don't. As long as you stay in the same store you can go off by your self," Grimes says.
I think she really can't wait to be rid of us, but you-know-who's back so everyone's on high alert. We'd probably walk around London by ourselves if that idiot had stayed a rodent instead of turning into a somewhat-human form.
"Ah!" I gasp as I step out into the bright sun light.
"Whoa! It's bright out here!" Jez says.
Jez and I squint, trying to get used to the sun.
"Where to first?" Grimes asks.
"Where ever." Jez says.
"How 'bout Flourish and Blotts?" I suggest.
"Great," says Grimes.
"Whatever" Jez is putting on her attitude, just incase anyone thinks she wants to be walking around with what could be mistaken for her mother.
We stroll into Flourish and Blotts and me and Jez head for the back of the store, taking Grimes by surprise. We got her figured out a long time ago. She always tries to be casually, so she wouldn't be caught dead chasing two teenagers to the back of a book store. So grimes picks up a copy of Witch Weekly from a shelf of magazines.
"We got her this time, but next time make a sharp right. She'll think we're gonna head for the back again so it'll work," I tell Jez.
"Yeah, good idea. How're we supposed to pick up guys with a teacher tagging along?" Jez says.
We look for the books on the list.
"Oh! We got one," Jez says.
"Where?" I ask. Jez has spotted a hot guy.
"There," Jez rolls her eyes in the direction of a cute red headed guy. The guys behind Jez so, I'm giving her the play-by-play of what's going on behind her.
"Okay. He's talking with a black kid and- Oh my gosh! He has a twin!" I exclaim.
"Turns out there's two hot red heads?" She smiles slowly in the same way she does before she kicks my but in racing.
"Looks like it."
"And it looks like there gonna be ours," We smile at each other. "Okay. I'm going to casually bump into one of 'em. And then you're gonna follow me," I explain.
"Wait! Why do I have to follow you?" Jez asks.
"Because," I say and before she can protest head toward the red heads.
My shoulder hits one of theirs gently as I walk past.
"Oops! Sorry," I say.
"That's alright," he says with a cute British accent. "I'm Fred Weasley, by the way." He introduces himself.
By this time Jez is behind me.
"And I'm George," his twins says.
"And I'm Lee Jordan." (The black kid)
"I'm Aziza, Izzy for short, and this is my friend Jezebel, Jez for short," I explain.
"Are you tourists? That's no British accent," says George.
"No. We're foreign exchange students, from New York," I smile. I'm proud to say I'm a New Yorker, New York is definatley one of the coolest places on Earth.
"Oooh. We've heard about you," Lee says.
"Yeah. You're coming to Hogwarts, right?" George asks.
"Yep. Do you guys go to Hogwarts?" Jez jumps in.
"Yes, we're in Gryffindor. Do you know what house you're in yet?" asks Fred.
I elbow Jez and nod toward the approaching grime. (get it? Like her name's Grimes and, she is grime)
"Uh. no. But we gotta go see ya' round," Jez finishing quickly and we hurry to drag Grimes out before we're seen with her too long.
We make an escape quickly and head over to Madame Malcolm's Robes for All Occasions.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~hours of shopping later~~~~~~~~~~~~~
"That wasn't too bad I guess," Me and Jez are back in our room in the Leaky Cauldron. Dinner's at 6 and its 4:30 now.
Jez stares at me. We didn't manage to avoid Grimes as much in the last couple of stores as in Flourish and Blotts.
The last place we were, we tried a new strategy (going in two opposite directions) and Grimes let her cool slip and screamed at us in front of the whole place.
"Anyway, Fred, George, and Lee were totally into us," I smiled my triumph smile.
She laughed.
"I wonder how old they are." Jez said.
"Probably about our age, right? Maybe a little older?" I said and sort of questioned.
"Oh! But they did get me thinking. What house are we going to be in?"
"Gryffindor, I hope. Then we can meet Harry."
We smiled at each other again. We're both kind of curious to meet this 'hero'. And see if he's really as great as everyone else thinks. I mean, sure, he's stopped you-know-who one-on-one a few times. But has he ever faced 10 or 12 death eater assassins? Jez and I have.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~September 1~platform9 ¾ ~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Grimes is trying to follow us on to the train.
"We can handle it, believe us! And plus, your assignment is to see us safely onto the train. Then we're Hogwarts responsibility!" Jez was trying to avoid looking like a complete idiot having adults accompany us onto the train like we were 11 or something.
"Wave to me from the window," Grimes gave up.
"Sure!" Jez squealed.
We got on the train and, as we promised, waved from the window.
"Oh. this is great! We can totally reinvent ourselves before we get there," Jez tells me.
"What?" was anyone else confused by that?
"We can have a theme, like we could use new Yorker accents. or southern accents!! Oh! That'd be so much fun! 'How y'all doin'? So what do you want to do?"
"Jez, Jez, Jez," I roll my eyes at her, "one of us is gonna slip up eventually."
"Yeah. whatever. You're no fun!" She complains.
"Plus we already were ourselves around Fred, George, and Lee," I remind her.
"Whatever. How much time till the train leaves?" Jez wants to know.
"Half an hour. We're pretty early," I say.
"Great. I can catch up on my sleep," Jez rests her head against the window and closes her eyes.
I roll my eyes and pull out one of my new books. It's the transfiguration book for school.
I start reading and realize that this school might be a little more difficult then we're used to.
I was reading for about 20 minutes when the red heads and they're friend showed up.
"Izzy! Hey!" they greeted me.
One of the twins laughed. "Looks like Jez needed a nap."
They all took a seat across from me and Jez.
Another red headed guy, a bushy haired girl, and none other than Harry Potter were standing in the doorway to our car.
"Oh yeah. This is Ron, Harry and Hermoine," George introduced me to them.
"Hey, I'm Izzy," I smiled at them.
"Nice to meet you," The girl mumbled, "Come on guys, let's go."
"See you around," Ron said.
"Bye," Harry.
They left our car.
"I don't think they like me very much." I looked at the guys.
"Don't worry about it. They've been a little cautious and moody since last year." Fred reassured me. (Kind of)
"Oh. With that whole Voldemort thing?" I asked.
They flinched at his name.
"Yes, that whole-thing. I'm not sure about America but here we don't like saying his name," George explained.
I laughed. "Yeah not everyone uses his name in the U.S. either."
"Well, I'm just itching to use my wand. So." Fred pulled out his wand.
"What're you going to do?" I asked.
"Jez shouldn't sleep on trains in the presence of so many strangers," Fred laughed.
"staticicisum"
I started laughing. Jez's hair was standing straight up.
They had some fun making Jez's make-up run and other stuff.
"So is Ron your brother?" I asked the twins.
"Yeah. He's our younger brother," Fred informed me.
"He's in the 5th year at Hogwarts," George told me.
"What year are you guys in?" I asked.
"We're in year 7. Our last year." George pretended to cry on Lee's shoulder. A bit geeky.
"What year are you in?" Lee asked.
No use lying they'll find out when we get there anyway.
"I'm in year 5," I said.
"Jez too?" Fred asked.
"Yep."
"Two years isn't that long," Lee shrugged.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~At Hogwarts~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
I'm shaking Jez awake.
"Come on! Get up!" I demand.
"Huh.what. waffles???" Jez mumbles.
I roll my eyes.
"We're here," I say.
"What?" She's awake now.
"Why didn't you wake me up sooner?" uh, oh. She's annoyed. "Come on. Everyone else is already off," I say.
We leave our trunks on the train and head toward a giant guy telling people where to go.
"Um. excuse me?" I try to get the man's attention.
"Yes?" He asks.
"Me and Jez here are exchange students from the U.S. Where should we go?" I ask.
"Might as well come with the firs' years in the boats. It's 'ogwarts tradition, ya know?" He says.
"Yes actually. I read 'Hogwarts a History'," I say.
"I forgo' ter introduce meself. I'm Hagrid. The groundskeeper 'ere at 'ogwarts," He introduced himself.
"Nice to meet you," I say politely. Jez is still a little grumpy and sleepy.
"I'm gonna be up all night thanks to you," she whispers moodily.
"Worse things could happen," I say.
"Like what?" She asks.
"You could look in a mirror," I say and laugh. Fred and George didn't take the interesting charms off her, but no one was so impolite as to stare. For all they knew this was all the rage in New York. "Very funny," she glares at me.
That settles it. I'll let her find out by herself.
We road the boats to Hogwarts. I was really impressed by the castle. It's beautiful.
We came into the castle with the first years. Professor McGonagal told us to wait for after all the first years were sorted and then she would introduce us.
They finally finished the first years. They took like forever. Professor Dumbledore: "This year we are happy to have two 5th years from an academy in New York with us. Jezebel Jackson, and Aziza Albertson."
They all clapped and cheered. There were actually a lot of people at Hogwarts. I heard it was pretty hard to get into.
My name was first alphabetically so I stepped up to the sorting hat. It was old and tattered and I was surprised that when I sat on the stool and pulled it on over my eyes it started whispering!
"Hm. you seem jolly, you could be Hufflepuff. A little big headed- maybe Slytherin. Smart as well, you could be in Ravenclaw. But you're also quite brave. Very brave. You brake lots of rules I see I think you'll be a- GRYFFINDOR!"
The Gryffindor table erupted with cheers. I took off the hat and smiled at my new house. I sat down with Fred, George, Lee, Hermoine, Ron, and Harry. But no before giving Jez an encouraging smile. Her and I are like the same person she's definitely going to be a Gryffindor too.
Jez thought so too. She walked up to the stool and hat with the confidence that she would be a Gryffindor as well.
Jez slipped the hat on and in a spilt second it screamed "SLYTHERIN!"