Rachel's eyes passed over all the paintings as they were moving along. Some of them smiled at the girls and one even winked, causing Nadia to let out a small squeal. Rachel was rather surprised that Nadia hadn't been letting out more high-pitched noises or rushing around the corridors. But she was walking along in sync with Rachel and gazing out at everything she saw, her mouth wide open.
On Rachel's other side was Nieve, who was walking along in a rather composed manner, although slightly stiffly. She nodded along to McGonagall who had just began speaking.
"Right, yes Dumbledore will have just been speaking about the dementors, which of course you three already know all about. He's also decided to move the three of you to a different room to stay in, now that the other students have arrived. He thought it would perhaps be safer if you stayed in one of the dormitories with the other pupils for the remainder of your stay. Unfortunately your escort appears a little unwell, so she won't be joining you at all today."
"Okay then," said Nieve in a voice that seemed to imply that she understood what was going on.
They all walked along a little further and Rachel assumed that Nadia had probably taken in very little of Professor McGonagall's words as she didn't seem to react in the slightest, but continued to turn her head side to side, not knowing what to look at next.
"Here we are," said Professor McGonagall looking up at two large doors. "Nice and quiet when we go in girls."
Nadia gave an enthusiastic nod and Rachel was extremely glad that Nadia had paid attention to those last few words. Nieve however, wasn't completely convinced Nadia would keep the agreement, but she didn't think she'd do anything that bad either. She might be a bit embarrassing, but she doubted anything major would happen.
They entered the hall.
Immediately Nadia began to make noise. Luckily it wasn't loud noise, not to begin with anyway. She started by making a sort of high-pitched sound when she exhaled and then she whispered "wow" and "oh my gosh" once or twice. Then she saw Remus Lupin.
"Arghhh Moony!" she squealed, causing strange looks from the crowds of watching students. Nieve continued to walk along hoping madly that would be the end of Nadia's outbursts of insanity.
It was not.
Nadia raced forward, knocking into McGonagall as she went along. She ran in a rather mad manner, with her arms waving about frantically and didn't stop until she was opposite Lupin at the teacher's table.
"Nadia what are you doing? Calm down," Nieve hissed loudly at the girl, but it made no difference.
Nadia stared dreamily into Lupin's eyes and gazed at the scars upon his face. She then had an uncontrollable urge to giggle and splutter as she attempted to recite quotes from the Marauders Map, but it all came out in fast muddle that didn't really make any sense to anyone.
Then Nadia found two hands on her shoulders and that she was being pulled away from the table.
"Nooo!" She shrieked. "I want my Moony! Nooo!"
Remus's face had grown pale and he had shrunk back in his seat. He was quivering very slightly and felt a little sick. Rachel felt sorry for the poor guy and Nieve was in shock. She'd thought that Nadia would have done something, but not as bad as this.
The students and teachers all watched in a stunned silence, as Nadia was dragged wailing from the teacher's table by professor McGonagall.
"Come on dear" the teacher had steered her out of the Hall "We're going to take you to Madam Pomfrey so you can have a nice rest and sit down" she said to her and then announced more loudly that Nadia must have consumed something funny causing her to act so strangely.
"Yes that's probably it. She's never acted like that before" said Rachel quickly and Nieve nodded in agreement to Rachel's words.
McGonagall and Nadia left the room and then Dumbledore began to speak. "This is Rachel Swift, Nieve Valois and the girl who left before was Nadia Miller, I'm sure she'll be fine soon enough"
Rather than clapping, the students began to mumble and the quiet atmosphere quickly disappeared, with students all discussing what had just happened. Rachel didn't care too much about it all, as she found Nadia's actions quite funny herself. But Nieve on the hand, felt extremely embarrassed. She was also slightly perturbed at the fact that Dumbledore had called her Nieve Valois and 'Valois' was not her second name just as 'Miller' was not Nadia's surname either. But she supposed it fit in with the crack in time thing going on, as time could have been rewritten. She still wasn't quite prepared to believe that theory though – it just seemed too ridiculous.
"Enough!" Dumbledore shouted after a moment, and the Hall went back into silence. "We will definitely be looking into who was responsible for that prank." His eyes briefly swiveled to the Gryffindor table and Nieve suspected his glare was directed at the Weasley twins.
"Why don't you both go and sit down?" He asked the two girls remaining. "I assure you your friend will be fine in the care of Madam Pomfrey. I hope we can overlook this occurrence"
The girls nodded and their eyes searched for somewhere to sit.
"If I may," said Snape speaking slowly "There appears to be some seats free at the Slytherin table."
"Ahh, yes," replied Dumbledore and he directed them to the spaces.
There must have been a reason for that Nieve thought, trying to figure out why Snape would want them to sit with the Slytherins after what had just happened. She supposed it could have just been a coincidence. But as she walked over to the free seat and found that Draco Malfoy had pushed his way over to sit next to her, she was sure there was something more going on.
"Look who you're sat next to," whispered Rachel in Nieve's ear.
"Valois," said Draco airily and Nieve looked over at him. "This is Parkinson, Crabbe and Goyle" Draco pointed at the people sitting opposite them before looking back at her. "And I'm Malfoy, Draco Malfoy" He gave this little nod, that Nieve was sure Nadia would have squealed at if she'd seen and then he extended his hand.
Nieve shook it feeling rather overwhelmed with what was happening. Draco wasn't exactly one of her favorite characters in the books, but the fact that she was shaking his hand was still just insane. It all was. She was actually having a conversation with a fictional character and one from something as amazing as Harry Potter.
"I assume your great-uncle mentioned me when he was visiting," drawled Draco knowledgeably "My father of course told me that you were coming to the school. It's nice to finally meet you."
"Oh…yes… you too" said Nieve feeling rather confused and very nervous. Somehow she didn't really like the idea that Draco seemed to know her already and she was already finding the situation stressful enough. It didn't really help that she wasn't at all confident speaking to boys.
Unlike Nieve, Rachel was more relaxed. She casually leant over Nieve's shoulder to stare at Draco a bit. His hair was maybe a slightly more silvery than Tom Felton's but he did look rather similar to the actor. His face shape appeared to about the same. She felt she could have peered at him for quite some time if it wasn't for the cough and angry glares Pansy shot at her.
"Who's that old woman?" Draco asked suddenly, which didn't really fit in the speech he'd been making about Potter and how he'd fainted at the sight of a dementor.
Nieve and Rachel, along with the other students glanced around at the old woman who had just entered the hall and began striding purposefully towards the teacher's table. Students were elbowing and pointing in her direction, but the lady ignored them all.
"Is that," began Nieve, but one look at Rachel's face told her she was right.
"Ah Miss Joy," said Dumbledore warmly, ignoring the fact the woman looked like she wanted to pound him with her walking stick.
"Don't 'Ah Miss Joy me! I want explanations and I want them now!"
"Yes, I'm sure you do. Perhaps we should step into my office. Professor Snape, please oversee everything until either myself or Professor Mcgonagall return."
"Right come on" snapped the woman angrily "I haven't got all day you know. There's a gardening show that I wanted to watch on rather soon, so we better sort this mess out quickly. Also I want the two girls too. That woman in the green cloak told me they were here"
"Of course," Dumbledore nodded and then called Nieve and Rachel to come over. The group all exited the hall, with everyone's eyes fixed on them in shock.
Hey there!
Thanks for the reviews and I'm sorry it took me so long to get this up. I actually ended up rewriting this chapter quite a few times, which is part of the reason it took so long. I hope it was worth the wait! xx
