James met Albus in his dormitory as promised the previous night.

"This is only because it's your first morning," he insisted, for the fiftieth time. "This is the only time I'm ever going to do this. So make the most of it." They started walking down the stairs.

"How was your first night?" James asked.

"It was good," Albus replied, still taking in the fascinating common room. "Strange. But good."

"Who are you in a room with?"

"Fred, Louis, Paul Armstrong, Jack Martin and Ryan Scott."

"That must be rowdy," James said, amusingly.

"With Fred there? Obviously! I know he's got some plans up his sleeve, but he won't tell us what. I suppose he wants us to find out the hard way." James and Albus went over to the Gryffindor Table, which wasn't very filled. The whole of sixth year was there. They knew that because they saw Victoire talking to a girl beside her animatedly. But there were only a few second years and several first years.

"Most people don't come down till about eight," James explained. "I'm going to go." He left Albus abruptly and went over to talk to a few boys in his year. Albus shrugged and sat down beside Olive. He caught sight of Victoria opposite him and smiled. There were a couple of girls he recognized from the Sorting, but forgot who they were.

"Hi Albus," Olive said, brightly. "These are the girls I share a dorm with. Of course you already know Vic, Daph, Violet and me, obviously. But there a couple of girls you don't know. This is Gemma Brown." She pointed to a girl with soft, brown hair and equally soft brown eyes, freckles and pale ethereal looking skin.

"Hi," Gemma said shyly, waving at Albus awkwardly. Albus waved back and immediately felt the colour rush to his cheeks. Great, he thought. Really impressive, Al!

"And this is Allison Davies." Olive was now gesturing to the girl on her other side. Albus had to peer past Olive to look at her. He recognized her as the pretty girl with honey coloured hair that had walked up to the Sorting Hat last night looking very nervous. She had bright, electric blue eyes and she smelt very strongly of the lilies that his mother liked to grow out of her wand in the garden.

"Allison, Gemma, this is my family friend, Albus."

"Hi," Albus said, again. At least he didn't blush this time. Allison grinned broadly. She looked a lot more confident than she did last night.

"Hi!" she beamed. "Are you a Weasley?"

"No," Albus replied. "Potter."

"Oh, it's just that there are about a million of them. I'm confused already."

"Well, at least they're not your cousins," Albus laughed.

"Hey!" Victoria and Daphne said at the same time.

"No offence," Albus added, hastily.

"Where is Fred?" Daphne said, looking at her watch. "He said he'd be here early to discuss Operation One!"

"He's still asleep," Albus replied. "And what is Operation One?" Although he was more or less used to Daph's strange ways by now, he still had to question some things.

"Wouldn't you like to know?" Daph said, mysteriously, tapping her nose.

"Yes, we would," Olive said, impatiently. "So will you please tell us like a normal person?"

"Olive, what gave you the impression that Daph is a normal person?" Victoria chimed.

"True," Olive had to agree.

"Albus," Allison suddenly said. "Is it true that Victoria can breathe fire?"

Albus didn't look up in time to see Victoria desperately winking and hinting at him to play along. He chuckled quietly.

"She lives on a dragon farm," he explained, patiently. "But she can't breathe fire!"

"Albus!" Victoria sighed, exasperatingly. It was then that Albus realized that a little playing along was in order. Violet sighed deeply.

"You're so special, Albus," she said, pityingly. The seven of them chatted for a few minutes and then the inhabitants of Albus's dormitory joined them.

"Hi," Fred said. "Sorry I'm late, Daph. I had some duties I had to attend to."

"Such as?" Daphne asked.

"The Land of Nod," he laughed, grabbing a pile of toast and buttering it with copius amounts of butter and jam.

"How did you sleep?" Louis asked, thickly, his mouth full of toast and marmalade. Olive eyed him disgustingly and began nibbling daintily at her own toast.

"Not bad," Violet replied.

"We were visited by the ghost though," Allison said.

"Oh, Nearly-Headless Nick?" Albus asked, eagerly. "My dad told me about him. How come he didn't come and visit us?"

"Errm, Allie?" Olive suddenly asked, holding her spoonful of Cheerios in mid-air. "Why is James staring at you?" It was true. James and a few at his friends had started staring at Allison, and not very discreetly. In fact, the one beside James was basically leering at her.

"Albus," Olive carried on, impatiently. "Control your brother. He's being weird."

"James Potter is your brother?" Allison asked. "He's hot!"

"O...K," Albus replied, somewhat uncomfortably.

"Wait a minute," Allsion said. "Is your dad Harry Potter?"

"Errm..yeah," Albus replied. He was quite used to this, but he still found it strange when people asked him questions about his father like he was some celebrity.

"Merlin!" she breathed. "Is he going to come here? Will we be able to meet him?"

"Chill out, Allie!" Olive said.

"Yeah," Gemma piped up. "It's not like his dad's Angelina Jolie or something." There was a silence.

"Who's that?" Albus asked.

"Probably some Muggle celebrity," Allison said, passively.

"Gemma is Muggle born," Olive explained. "Who is Angelina Jolie anyway?"

"She's an actress," said Gemma.

"An actress?" Louis repeated, questioningly.

"Yeah," Gemma went on. "That means she acts, mainly on the TV, you know, the television box that we Muggles watch for entertainment. I'll bring in a picture of her after Christmas. I know you boys will appreciate it." She nodded towards the boys when she said this last line.

"Seriously, Albus," Olive said, putting her spoon down. "Tell your brother to stop staring at Allie! It's weird!"

"Allie doesn't seem to mind!" Gemma commented. It was true. Allison was now staring back at James and twiddling the ends of her hair flirtatiously.

"Well, some of us are trying to eat!" Olive explained, nonplussed. "And we can't do that with James and his mates ogling at her!"

"Fine," Albus sighed, reluctantly. "I'll tell him." He got off the bench and walked over to where James was sitting with his friends. He knelt down beside his brother.

"James," he whispered, not wanting to say it loudly and embarass him. "Errm, Olive and a few of the other girls over there think it's really weird that you're staring at Allison, so...they kind of want you to stop."

"Is that her name?" James asked eagerly, as if just coming out of a trance. He elbowed the boy beside him who had been leering at Allison. "Max! Her name's Allison! Allison what, Al?"

"Davies," Albus replied, warily. "Anyway, they just want you to stop staring. Olive says she can't eat when you do that."

"Well tell Olive to mind her own business!" James snapped, irritably. "Anyway, I don't see Allison complaining." He said her name as if she were the Greek goddess, Aphrodite herself. Or even this Angelina Jolie that Gemma had spken of. Albus rolled his eyes. He wasn't surprised. It was never easy to tell James what to do. As he walked away, he heard Max hiss to James:

"Who's Olive?"

"Oh, just a family friend," James said, passively.

"Which one is she though?" Max persisted.

"The one on Allison's left hand side."

"Oh. She's not bad either actually!"

"She's Poppy's sister."

"Ah, runs in the family then! Some great genes there!"

"Max! Ew! Poppy's like my other sister!"

"So? She's not like a sister to me!" Albus sighed with exasperation as he joined his friends (and cousins) again.

"Are they going to stop now?" Olive asked.

"I wouldn't count on it," Albus replied, honestly.

"Ew! Now the one beside James is staring at me!" Olive exclaimed. "Actually, he's quite hot!"

"He is, isn't he?" Allie agreed. "And so's James."

"No, that would be weird," Olive replied, quickly. "He's my sister's best friend."

"So?" Allie queried. "He's not your best friend!"

"I know. But it's still weird."

"Well, I think he's hot. What do you think Gemma?" Gemma looked up her cornflakes and shrugged, not looking remotely interested.

"I hadn't really noticed," she said. Albus smiled, feeling very happy for some reason.

"Oh OK," Allison said, surprisingly. "Daph, what do you think?"

"Ew!" Daph exclaimed, just like Olive had a second ago. "James is my cousin!"

"Oh sorry," Allison said, apologetically. "I can't keep up with your large and complicated Potter/Weasley family tree! What about the other one? You're not related to him, are you?"

"No," Daph admitted, scanning Max. "But he looks like a bit of a show off."

"You must be talking about Max Bailey." They all whirled around in their seats and saw Poppy Finnegan. "Stay away from him," she warned. "He's trouble."

"Hi Pops," Olive said. "What do you mean he's trouble?"

"He's a bit of a player," Poppy explained, eyeing Max with distaste. "I'm just warning you. You're right, Daph. He's a show-off, he's irritating and he picks up girls and then disposes of them like used hankies. Just ask Polly."

"Polly?" Violet asked, suddenly. "As in my sister, Polly?"

"Yeah. She went out with him last year for a month and then he dumped and started going out with Hayley Branning half an hour later."

"Is he still going out with Hayley now?" Victoria asked. Poppy shook her head at her pityingly.

"Haven't I explained the hanky system?" she stated. "No. He's gone out with about a million other girls since then."

"That's so cool," Jack said, admiringly. Ryan, Paul and Louis all agreed heartily. Fred looked disinterested and was now bending over a suspicious looking diagram with Daphne. All the other girls, apart from Olive and Allison who were still smiling and giggling at Max and James, looked very upset by this, especially Violet.

"I'm just telling you girls now," Poppy finished. "Especially you, Olive. Max Bailey is no good."

"Fine," Olive said, impatiently. "Whatever, Poppy, I can look after myself."

"Yeah, right," Poppy scoffed. "You try looking after youself here. I swear, you won't last a week!"

"Well, you did!" Olive pointed out.

"Yeah, but you're..you. I'm not saying your completely hopeless, I'm just saying that Hogwarts is not something you can just describe. You have to live it for yourself to get your own personal definition of what it's like here."

"Whatever!" Olive said again. "Since when are you so philosophical? I'll be fine, Poppy! Don't worry about me!" Poppy shrugged and went over to sit beside James. She elbowed him sharply in the ribs to stop him staring at Allison.

"Good morning to you to," he muttered, rubbing his chest. Poppy reached for the platter of kippers.

Yep, she thought. This is going to be a very interesting year.