Title: The Exchange.
Author: MangoE2
Summary: Hogwarts is in for a big surprise when the Darling Academy for the Magically Splendid decides to send a huge number of it's students on an exchange. Questions arise as the group settle into life at Hogwarts. Why are they here? Where did they come from? And how come no one has ever heard of the DAMS until now...?
Pairings: Harry/Cho, Ginny/Michael, Morgan/Sam, Tayla/Charles, Shayna/Kyle, Kathryn/Mathew, Reece/Deanna.
Notes: So after days of waiting, here is chapter one. Now shut up and read! Please...


Chapter One

First Acquaintances and Bad Impressions


Harry's first impression of Grimmauld Place was not a very good one. It was shabby, battered and scratched and had a doom and gloom air about it that he didn't like. It felt like a prison.

"Get in quick, Harry," Remus Lupin whispered to him. "But don't go far inside and don't touch anything." Harry walked in, and the inside was even worse than outside. It was dark and cold and smelt funny. The others followed him inside and Moody disillusioned him with a sharp rap to the head with his wand.

"Now, stay still, everyone, while I give us a bit of light in here," said Moody. The room lightened and Mrs Weasley hurried out towards them. She was thinner and paler from when Harry had last seen her, but her smile was as warm as ever.

"Oh, Harry, it's lovely to see you!" she whispered. "You're looking peaky," she said, after releasing him from a rib-crushing hug. "You need feeding up, but you'll have to wait for dinner, I'm afraid." She turned to the others and said "he's arrived, the meeting's started." The others moved and Harry started to follow them but Mrs Weasley stopped him. "No, Harry, the meetings only for members of the Order. Ron and Hermione are upstairs, you can wait with them until the meetings over, and then we'll have dinner. And keep your voice down in the hall."

"Why?"

"I don't want anything waking up."

Harry was hurried upstairs, and accosted by Hermione the moment he stepped into the bedroom.

"HARRY! Ron, he's here, Harry's here! We didn't hear you arrive! Oh, how are you? Are you all right? Have you been furious with us? I bet you have, I know our letters were useless – but we couldn't tell you anything, Dumbledore made us swear we wouldn't, oh, we've got so much to tell you, and you've got things to tell us – the Dementors! When we heard – and that Ministry hearing – it's just outrageous, I've looked it all up, they can't expel you, they just can't, there's provision in the Decree for the Restriction of Underage Sorcery for the use of magic in life-threatening situations –"

"Let the man breathe, Hermione," said Ron, grinning as he closed the door.

Hermione let go of harry and that's when he noticed Hedwig.

"She's been in a right state," said Ron. "Pecked us half to death when she brought your last letters, look at this –" he continued, showing a deep cut on his right index finger.

"Oh, yeah, sorry about that, but I wanted answers, you know –"

"We wanted to give them to you, mate. Hermione was going spare, she kept saying you'd do something stupid if you were stuck all on your own without news, but Dumbledore made us –"

"- swear not to tell me. Yeah, Hermione said."

The conversation continued, all the while Harry's anger bubbling under the surface, until finally...

"SO YOU HAVEN'T BEEN IN THE MEETINGS, BIG DEAL! YOU'VE STILL BEEN HERE, HAVEN'T YOU? YOU'VE STILL BEEN TOGETHER! ME, I'VE BEEN STUCK AT THE DURSLEY'S FOR A MONTH..."

He continued to yell at them, until finally, he calmed. They were talking with their indoor voices when Fred and George apparated into the bedroom.

"Hello, Harry," George said, beaming. "We thought we heard your dulcet tones."

"You don't want to bottle up your anger like that, Harry, let it all out. There might be a couple of people fifty miles away who didn't hear you," Fred added. They talked for a bit before the door opened and Ginny walked in.

"Oh, hello, Harry. I thought I heard your voice," she said, before turning to Fred and George. "It's no-go with the extendable ears; she's gone and put an Imperturbable Charm on the kitchen door. Oh, and Amylee has a new idea for you."

"Excellent," said Fred, rubbing his hands together, an evil grin gracing his face.

"Who –" Harry began.

The others exchanged nervous looks. Harry had already passed boiling point, and the air was still tense. Did they really want to risk another explosion? Then again, the explosion was sure to come anyway – especially if they didn't tell him.

"We have some, ah, guests..." Hermione began delicately. "They've only been here for a week or so, and there are a fair few of them..."

"Who are they?" said Harry.

"You don't know any of them. They're exchange students from New Zealand. Dumbledore said they come from a wizarding school there called the Darling Academy for the Magically Splendid, although I've never heard about it before or read it anywhere..." said Hermione, her voice trailing off. She looked frustrated as she always did when books failed her.

"Exchange students?" Harry asked incredulously, his previous anger temporarily forgotten.

"Yeah."

Ron snorted. "The Darling Academy... the only darling in that group is Amylee, and she's insane. She reminds me of Luna, but more hyper."

"How many are there?" asked Harry.

"Well, there's Amylee. Fred and George have kind of taken her under their wing, and she and Ginny get along really well. She's crazy, though," said Ron.

"Just the way I like 'em," said Fred.

"Definitely worthy of our teachings," agreed George.

"Then there are her friends, Morgan and Tayla. Morgan is... kinda scary. She knows a lot, which annoys Hermione. But she yells at you if you piss her off and Tayla is very accident-prone... and mildly psychotic. We think," Ron continued.

"She kind of scares me," said Hermione. "She's nice, but you get the feeling that you wouldn't wanna piss her off."

"Yeah, agreed. Morgan's boyfriend Sam is okay. He doesn't really say much unless you get him on the subject of games. Reece is hilarious. He's always cracking jokes. Almost puts Fred and George to shame, and Mathew is really calm. Like, really calm. And really smart."

"You've missed someone out, Ronniekins," said Fred. Ron's ears turned bright red.

"I know," he muttered. "I was hoping we could forget about him." Fred grinned.

"Where would be the fun in that, dear brother?" he said malevolently. He turned to Harry, still grinning. "What our dear brother over there was trying to avoid was mentioning Josh. He has serious anger iss –"

"I DON'T CARE WHERE KATHRYN MIGHT BE SO FOR THE LOVE OF GOD SHUT THE FUCK UP!"

"Speak of the devil," Fred said brightly. "I don't suggest approaching him. He's only nice to Tayla."

"Poor fellow," said Hermione. "I bet all he needs is someone to talk to."

"I DON'T NEED ANYONE!"

"...I think he heard you."

Stomp, stomp, stomp.

The door crashed open and revealed a short, chubby boy with messy hair such a dark brown it almost appeared black, and tinted glasses. His face was screwed up in anger and his fists were clenched at his side. Ron avoided his gaze of fury.

"JOSHY!" Fred yelled out, faking surprise. "Fancy seeing you here! Why, we were just talking about you!" He seemed unfazed by the look Josh sent his way. "Where's that delightful girl of yours, eh?" he said, winking.

Josh twitched.

"Oh Merlin..." Ron said faintly. "You unleashed it..."

"SHE'S NOT MY GIRLFRIEND!" Josh yelled, walking up to Fred and glaring at him. He was seething.

"You know you should probably stop winding him up like that," said an amused voice coming from the open doorway. "I'm sure the meetings been disturbed."

"Most likely. I think there might have been a few fish in the sea that didn't hear him though, why don't you try harder, Josh?" said someone else. Josh spun around to see two girls. One was ultra-skinny with hardly any boobs and dark, curly hair, while the other was blonde and wore purple-rimmed glasses.

"Aw, but I don't wanna," said Josh, his voice amazingly civil.

Harry looked at the two girls, amazed. How the hell did they do that? He looked over to Ron who looked equally as stunned, although this probably wasn't the first time he was witnessing such a thing.

"But you gotta!" said Amylee, her voice high and childish. Harry noticed that she had really big, brown eyes. "Cos I said so!" and she stuck out her tongue for emphasis.

"Amylee, we should be trying to keep the roof on this place, not blow it off," Tayla joked.

Josh held up his wand. "Can I?" he said, grinning maniacally.

"...No."

Just then Reece walked in and hit Tayla on the head.

"Ow!" she yelled.

"Love you," said Reece. "HARRY POTTER, how the fuck are ya?" he continued, walking up to Harry and making him bump knuckles. Josh pointed his wand at Reece.

"Can I? Pretty please?"

"You can take your aggression out on the doxies tomorrow?" Tayla offered.

"Okay! I'm off to murder a pillow." Josh left the room and Tayla and Amylee entered, walking over to Reece.

"Morgan, Sam and Mathew are in the room talking about Halo and we're bored so we've decided to join you," Tayla explained. "I think Reece followed us just because."

"I wanted to shake hands with H dawg, here," said Reece, nodding to Harry.

"H dawg...?" Harry felt completely out of the loop. He certainly hadn't expected anything like this.

"Don't ask," said Tayla. "So, feeling better?" She was obviously referring to his screaming fit. Harry didn't answer her. Instead, he looked over to Ron and Hermione. He still wanted to catch up, but not in front of these three, or any of the others. Tayla, Amylee and Reece got the hint.


Out in the hall, the door closed shut behind them.

"Didn't seem that pleased to see us, did they?" Reece said, his face screwed up in confusion. The thought of people not liking them did not compute with his brain. He flicked his hair to one side casually, drawing attention to his hair. It was layered and a colour somewhere between brown and blonde. His eyes were a very pretty, sparkly blue.

"Just a wee bit," said Amylee.

"Hello, kiddies!" Reece cried out, entering the bedroom three doors down from the one they just left. The room was tidier than the one next to it (which happened to be the boys) so the group had decided to hang in there until the meeting was over. Morgan and Sam were sitting on one bed, talking to Mathew about Halo and Josh lay sleeping on another one. Tayla and Amylee followed Reece in and shut the door.

"Do you think the meeting is nearly over?" Josh mumbled from the bed, rubbing an eye. "Because this is getting really fucking boring."

"I hope so," Morgan replied. She looked a bit bored. "So, how did he react?" she added, turning to face Amylee and Tayla. Tayla giggled.

"As expected. He was so clueless, eh?" she said, looking over at Amylee.

"Yep! It was great!"

"Ron is well and truly scared of you, Josh."

"Good."

"Where do you think the others are?" Mathew asked, worried. He was obviously referring to Kathryn and Shayna. Neither of the two had appeared where the rest of the group had, though it was certain that they had appeared somewhere. According to Dumbledore, anyway.

"How long do you think we'll be stuck here?"

Tayla and Amylee just shook their heads.

"We don't know. Shayna and Kathryn could have ended up anywhere for all we know, and I have no idea how long we'll be stuck here. First we need to figure out how we even got here in the first place, before we can even think about how we're going to get back," said Amylee.

"It's obviously something to do with that dust, though. Where did you even find it?" asked Tayla.

Amylee shrugged.

"I dunose," she said. "Just found it, I guess. I don't even remember."

"Helpful."

"Yep!"

"Well, I think it's gay," said Reece. "I miss my guitar..."

"We know, Reece," said Tayla sympathetically. "Don't you think it's weird though... being stuck in a world where we know what's going to happen? Well, some of us, anyway –" but she was cut off by the opening of the door.

"Ooh, good, you're all in here. The meeting's over," said Mrs Weasley. "So you can come downstairs now – especially you, Amylee. You need feeding."

The others grinned at Amylee, who grimaced at the thought. She was Mrs Weasley's newest project.

Downstairs, the others were clearing up from the meeting. The group didn't pay much attention to anything other than getting dinner on the table and into their stomachs. For now, much more pressing matters were nestled somewhere at the back of their mind – though it wouldn't be long before they made themselves present again.

One thing was for sure – they were in for an interesting time.


Notes: Please review! Feedback gives me warm fuzzies and warm fuzzies encourage me to write :) So if you want to read more... you know what to do ;)

Live long and prosper,

- The Mango.