OK, here's our next chapter. Thank you so much for your reviews, inuyashasmikogurl18656 and both guest reviewers!
Everyone had been told how to get onto Platform 9¾ before, so everyone got on the train in good time. Helga and Phoebe found empty compartment straightaway, and they started talking.
"I've been reading up on the houses." Phoebe said. Being a muggleborn student, she didn't know much about the school, but she'd found out as much as she could. "Have you thought about what house you want to be in?"
Helga shrugged. "No, not really. Olga was in Ravenclaw, so anywhere but there, I guess."
The door slid open and a slightly older girl with frizzy hair already in her uniform looked in. "Oh, hi." she said with a shy smile. "Are you new?"
The girls nodded. "I'm Hermione Granger." the frizzy-haired girl said. "I was just looking for my friends. Have you seen a boy with red hair and a boy with dark hair and glasses?"
"No, sorry." Phoebe said.
"Are they your boyfriends?" Helga smirked a bit.
Hermione frowned a bit at her mocking tone. "They're my friends. Harry Potter and Ron Weasley." she emphasized the word 'friends'. "I was just asking, because I saw Ron's family, but he wasn't with them."
Helga and Phoebe remembered Harry's name from the textbooks, but neither commented. They knew that he'd been the one to make the most evil wizard of all time, Lord Voldemort, disappear when he was only a baby. But neither commented on the fact that they'd just met a friend of someone famous.
Phoebe spoke up quickly before she could leave. "So what year are you in? Can you tell us what it's like?"
"Oh, it's wonderful, the lessons are really interesting, and you learn so much!" Hermione said enthusiastically, sitting down next to Phoebe. "I'm a second year, in Gryffindor." She proceeded to give Phoebe a run-down of every class and every teacher. "We have Professor Lockhart for Defence Against the Dark Arts this year. He's done all these amazing things that he wrote all these books about. Last year we had Professor Quirrell, but stuff happened, I'll explain later."
Helga sighed and stared out the window. "Great." she muttered. "Five minutes and my best friend's already buddied up with some other girl." She went off by herself while Phoebe and Hermione were still deep in conversation. She passed a compartment where Rhonda was flirting with a couple of older boys. She thought she might as well get changed into her robes, and she did so before walking further down. Then she saw a compartment where Arnold and Gerald were conversing with Sid, Harold, and an excitable looking boy with a camera.
Helga stared for a moment, then looked around. No one was out of their compartment in the passage, and so she was on her own. She took out her Arnold locket, sighing in her usual lovesick way. "A new start at a new school. Oh, Arnold, will this be the push I finally need so I can, once again, express my less-than-secret feelings without covering it up the way I always do? My own taste of real Amortentia, will I ever be able to freely tell you of my love?"
She heard heavy breathing behind her, and didn't need to look around as she punched Brainy in the face. She would never be able to break her habit of doing that. She went back to her compartment. Hermione was still there, but next to her and Phoebe were a bunch of items.
Phoebe looked up and smiled at her. "Hey, Helga. Hermione was just telling me all about the house system. Oh, and the sweets trolley came by." She held out a Chocolate Frog. "Want one?"
"Thanks, Pheebs." Helga said, taking it. She eyed the rest of the candy. "Hey, could you pass me one of those Pumpkin Pasties while you're at it?"
"Passing!" Phoebe chirped brightly, doing just that.
Meanwhile, Lila had found a compartment with a young redhead that she'd seen with a bunch of redheaded boys on the platform. The girl's parents had helped her find a good compartment, and Lila had gone to sit down in the same place.
"Hi!" she said. "I'm Lila Sawyer. What's your name?"
"Oh...Ginny." the redhead answered. "Ginny Weasley. I'm a first-year."
"Me too!" Lila smiled. She recognized the name Weasley, since being a pureblood, she knew pretty much all of the pureblooded wizarding names (although they were blood traitors, just like the Sawyers). "I'm ever so excited about starting here. Do you know what house you'll be in yet?"
"Well, my whole family has been in Gryffindor." Ginny said. "I've had six brothers here so far. Four of them still go here. I've got a lot to live up to." She looked very nervous about starting.
"I'm hoping to be in Gryffindor, too." Lila said. "But I'm an only child. My dad was in Hufflepuff, and I think my mom was in Ravenclaw, although I didn't ever get to know her. Still, I know a lot of people here, this year. Most of my class from my old school are going here."
Ginny sighed. "I was home-schooled. My dad knows a lot about Muggles, so I could get all the information I needed without going to school. So I don't know anyone in my year."
"Well, you know me." Lila said brightly. "I can introduce you to a few others, too. I mean, you should meet some of them, like Arnold, for example, is probably the nicest boy you could meet. He's always giving really good advice and everyone likes him. And there's also Phoebe, she's pretty quiet, but she's ever so generous and she nearly skipped two grades. She'll help out pretty much anyone if they ask – just make sure you don't get on the wrong side of her best friend. I'll explain it later, I can point some of them out at the Sorting."
Soon, the students found themselves at the end of the line. As the first years got off the train, they immediately heard a voice calling the first years over. It was Hagrid, the gamekeeper. A couple of the muggleborns looked a bit nervous at his size, but things went OK. The students just had to take boats across the lake to get to the castle for the first time, four to a boat. Lila immediately paired up with Ginny, who she'd talked to the whole way there, and when she saw Arnold and Gerald, called them over and introduced them to Ginny.
Helga fumed as she saw Lila sharing her boat with Arnold, Gerald, and some redheaded girl. She was sharing with Phoebe, and she also got stuck with Sheena and some blonde girl that seemed to be daydreaming all the time. By this time, she wasn't in a good mood. First, Phoebe had talked to Hermione for a lot of the train ride (who seemed to be a kindred spirit, as they were both the brainiacs of their age), and the fact that Arnold was sharing a boat with Lila, who he had had a crush on for a long time, didn't exactly help, although she knew he didn't "like her-like her" any more. Even when Helga got her first glimpse of Hogwarts, the majestic beauty of the building didn't bring her spirits up.
Then they were led up to the doors, and were told by Professor McGonagall, the Head of Gryffindor and Deputy Headmistress, to wait in the hall until the rest of the school was ready for them.
The Sorting will be next chapter. Please review! Also, a trivia question: I saw a Nickelodeon bumper in which had the line: "I wanna hang with Arnold's gang and save the neighbourhood". If you were a member of the gang, who would you want to be? If it wasn't for the emotional rollercoaster Helga's on nearly all the time, I'd be her, but as it is, I'm going with Phoebe.
