Coming Closer

The grounds of Hogwarts are dark, and with all the students in bed, surprisingly peaceful. However, as with most peaceful things, it can't stay that way for long. This is where I come in. Well, me and my friends actually. As the group of us creep through the darkness, the sound of our footsteps crunching on leaves cuts through the silence. So much for being stealthy, I think, and cringe as I step on a particularly loud twig. This is what I live for. The feeling of doing something completely forbidden, and breaking the "good girl" persona that, until coming here, I was expected to fill. I tilt my head back, and as the cold night air washes over me, I can't help but feel that this is where I belong, in a world of magic. As I glance ahead, I see the moving ahead, so I quicken my pace to match theirs. Wait a second... I count the number of people ahead of me, and it was as I suspected. Someone else is lagging behind, and I smile to myself, knowing exactly who it is.

"You coming Albus?" I whisper into the darkness, and I hold my breath waiting for his response.

"Yeah... one second!" he replies, from behind me.

I pause, waiting to hear his familiar footsteps behind me. But before I know it, a pair of arms jolts my shoulders, and, instinctively, I scream and jump about 5 feet in the air. "Albus!" I hiss, whipping around to face my best friend, Albus Potter.

"Didn't know you scared so easily" he says, with a smirk on his face.

"Did you not get the point, the first hundred times?" I say, rolling my eyes at him.

He grins, and falls into step beside me. "Well is it my fault that you're so fun to scare?" he asks, attempting to sound innocent.

"Yes." I reply, smiling and nudging his shoulder.

It's times like these, walking with Albus, and surveying the grounds of Hogwarts, that I'm grateful that I'm a part of this magical world. And to think, that little more than 4 years ago, I had no idea it even existed. See, when I was growing up, I guess I had a negative childhood. Don't get me wrong, I wasn't shunned as a child. I wasn't beaten up, or picked on all the much. I had a few close friends, and wasn't really disliked by a whole lot of people. Thinking back, the only real thing that separated me from my peers was that by the 5th grade I was taking 7th grade classes. Well, some of them. Math, Science, and Language Arts, to be specific (I've never really liked History). So, even though I had friends that were in my class, I was always thought of as the "super smart" or "perfect" one, even at that age. And of course, the 7th graders just thought I was a nerd. And wouldn't talk to me. Because I was "too young" for their liking. Or something like that, I never bothered to find out. Pretty much, I was a bit of an outcast.

This level of academics was, of course, not my choosing. Actually, if it had been up to me, I would have just coasted by in regular classes, and stayed with my friends all day. Unfortunately, being a minor, it wasn't exactly up to me. It was up to my parents. And my parents expected absolute perfection from me. Which, as a child was a hard role to fill. From the time I was six they never really liked me participating in typical childlike activities, like sleepovers, and playing with dolls. My mom considered them a "waste of time", while my dad would say that I should "be more productive."

To add to my quirkiness at school, weird things tended to happen around me. Like the time my teacher made me mad, for talking down to me in class (he assumed that because I was in the 5th grade he could talk to me like I was 5 and get away with it), and next thing I knew the whiteboard fell over on top of him. Or the time that I got mad at a kid for picking on me in school, and the next day he came to school with a bit of a different hairstyle. He was completely bald. Needless to say, the kids called him "Dr. Phil" and I got my revenge. Without even knowing how I did it. I guess I just assumed that those weird things that happened were karma taking its toll, so I accepted it.

So you can imagine my surprise when I came home and there was an owl on my porch. Holding an envelope from some place called Hogwarts, saying that I was a witch, and that I could do magic, and spells and stuff. And that I was accepted into this elite witch/wizard school somewhere in London! Uh yeah, kind of a lot to take in. But the moment I got the letter, I went upstairs to pack my bags. I mean, what kid wouldn't? This was my chance to become invisible, to fly, and to live every kids' dream. Also, it might be a chance to start over. To not be the super-smart nerd kid, but to be the smart normal kid. To actually blend in for once.

Convincing my parents turned out to be the worst part. Because, at first they thought I was lying, and telling stories. And once they read the letter, and once I showed them proof (in a form of making a book fly across the room in my frustration), they were even more dead set against letting me go. It was only with huge promising to keep up with my studies, and proof that the school was the best for sorcery, that convinced them. Which is how I, at the age of 11 years old, ended up on the Hogwarts Express, with all my valued possessions packed into trunks, and an owl cooing softly in the seat beside me.

I remember that day perfectly, only because of the nervousness I felt about being the "new kid" that nobody knew. I figured that a lot of people would already have friends, and I would automatically be the odd one out. Which it was surprising when a small boy, with a mop of black hair and piercing green eyes, ran into the compartment I was sitting in, and slammed the door with enough force to make me jump. He then turned to me and said, in a quiet voice, "Is this seat taken?"

Jumping on the chance to make a new friend, I smiled and replied "Not yet, but I guess it is now."

Sighing in relief, the boy threw his stuff onto the seat, and settled back, the look of panic leaving from his face. "I'm Albus by the way" he said, looking over at me. "Albus Potter."

"Albus? Where's that from?" I inquired, and then added in as a sidenote "I'm Leigh."

The boy looked at me with shock, as if I had just asked the stupidest question alive. "You know, Albus Dumbledore?" he said, as if I was supposed to know who that was.

"Uh, I'm not familiar with him, sorry," I replied, hoping the note of confusion in my voice would lead him to explain. Which he did, at length. He was actually just finishing relating the accounts of the former headmaster of Hogwarts, when a girl showed up on the outside of the door. She looked kind of shy as well, and hesitated before knocking on the outside of the compartment door. Albus and I looked up, and then he got this look on his face. I couldn't tell whether it was happiness, or sadness, or panic, or what. But he raised his eyebrows at the girl, and motioned his head to the side, almost as if a question. The girl smiled, and shook her head, which is when Albus went up to open the car door.

"Hurry Rose, just get in!" he said as he ushered her into the car.

The girl rolled her eyes at him and said "Relax Albus, I lost him on the other side of the train. I dodged under the trolley cart, and he was to tall to follow me there."

He grinned at her and said "Nice move, I would never have thought of that."

At this point, I was immensely curious to what they were talking about, so I blurted out, "Wait, what's going on?" They both turned around to look at me and Albus grinned and said, "If you're going to be friends with us, we have a lot to tell you!"

So him and Rose related to me their avoidance of Albus's older brother, James, because they didn't want to take his place at the school. In fact, they explained a whole lot of things to me, about witches and wizards, and things I should know if I was going to be one. Talking with them made the five hour train ride feel like nothing at all, and most of all, it made me feel normal.

The rest, as I say, was history. Upon arriving to Hogwarts, we were all sorted into Gryffindor, which wasn't as big a deal for me as it was for the two of them. We became fast friends, and soon met another group of kids that would eventually make up the group that we have today.

Fast forward about four years, and here we are. Our 5th year at Hogwarts, being the hooligans that we could never be back home. Albus jerks me into reality by waving a hand in front of my face and softly saying "Earth to Leigh, hello? You there?"

"Yeah, sorry, I was thinking about how we met" I say looking up at him.

"Oh yeah, back when we were cute little first years" he replies, and making a face at the thought of our first year at Hogwarts.

"Come on, it wasn't that bad!" I protest, thinking back on all the good things that came of that year.

"Yeah, it wasn't." he agrees, nodding his head. "But why focus on the past, when the present is so much more fun?" he continues, a slow smile going across his face.

"You have a point there," I concede, and the two of us stop for a second, and just look at each other.

"We should..." he starts, gesturing towards the rest of the group.

"Meet you there!" I say winking at him, and then turn to run towards my friends. Little did I know, my 5th year at Hogwarts wasn't going to consist of cliché nights, and slightly harder classes. No, instead of focusing on my schoolwork, we were going to be focusing on something of a completely different nature, that couldn't be solved with a simple " Expelliarmus!" No, instead of fighting for our grades, we would be fighting for something else entirely. Our lives.