Hello everyone! I wasn't able to type this up last night like I wanted so I could it post first thing this morning, but it's here now, when I said I would have it, which is a good start for me, as any of you who were with me during my Narnia: The Musical experience know. If you haven't read the revised and 10x better first chapter version, please do that first. From this point on, this is the farthest I've gotten with this story ever. I have a million different first chapter versions, and I might have written a second chapter at some point, but none were published, until now! So please enjoy!


Chapter 2: An Elemental Entrance

"Bye Harry!" Luna Lovegood called out dreamily as she headed to the Ravenclaw table.

After she was lost in the crowds of students gathering for the beginning of term feast, Ron turned to Harry and said, shaking his head, "Mental, that one is sometimes. The ideas that come out of her head."

"Oh shut up, Ron," Ginny responded, annoyed. "Luna is just a little different, that's all." With that and an angry look at her brother, she too disappeared as she went to join her fellow forth-years.

"Really Ron, Ginny's right," said Hermione as the three friends found seats at the Gryffindor table. "You could be a bit kinder to Luna. She's not crazy, just a little different."

But before Ron could retort, Dumbledore stood up and soon after the Sorting Ceremony began. Ron's attitude towards Luna was forgotten during the feast due to their discussions about the Sorting Hat's new song and the arrival of Umbridge.

Their fears were confirmed after the feast when Dumbledore announced that Umbridge would be the new Defense Against the Dark Arts professor.

"That should be interesting," remarked Harry to himself.

"Hem, hem," said Umbridge from the Head Table as she interrupted Dumbledore. The whole hall was shocked as she stood up, apparently about to give a speech.

The speech was as boring as Harry thought it would be. She seemed to drone on and on and on.

"…and I'm sure we will all grow to be great friends," continued Umbridge an infinitesimal number of minutes later. "I'm sure my colleagues and I will-"

But she never got to finish.
A loud and deep Boom, like a large drum being struck was heard, and the entire hall vibrated.

Boom.

Silence.

Boom.

Silence.

Boom.

By this time everyone was looking around to see where the noise was coming from. A shriek was heard and suddenly everyone was staring at the large closed doors to the Great Hall. The booming continued, but was now accompanied by what appeared to be frost creeping up and covering the large doors. A cold fog was seeping under the doors into the hall now too.

"Ah," said Dumbledore, rising again. A dumbstruck and outraged Umbridge still stood. "It seems our guests have arrived a little late, but safe none-the-less."

The whole hall now went dark and the loudest Boom sounded. The doors flew open and four hooded figures marches purposefully into the Great Hall. Magical blue, red, green, and yellow flames lit their path from the doors, around the back of the hall, and down between the Ravenclaw and Hufflepuff tables to where Dumbledore stood.

When they reached the turn in their path, a huge gust of wind flew down the center aisle and the flames shot up and burned so brightly that everyone momentarily shut their eyes. When they opened them, they saw that their visitors had changed their appearance. The four now were dressed in long, shiny, black trench coats. There were two males, and two females, all around Harry's age. They all had dark hair except for one of the girls whose hair looked like the red flames that were burning. Both girls had their hair pulled back into a tight bun, and all four marched seriously up to the Head Table and lined up, each in front of a House table.

"Headmaster Dumbledore," said the boy who appeared to be the oldest. All four held their arms straight out to the sides and stared straight forward. "We are the exchange students from America. We apologize for our late arrival, and thank you for allowing us to come. We are proud to represent Universe Senior High School of Magic!"

At this, with one fluid motion, each exchange student brought their hands down to their side, arched their backs, stomped their foot, and flew into the air. As they flew above their heads, the Hogwarts students could see that they were each being propelled by a different element and color.

"Representing the Fire Academy," continued the oldest boy as he flew around, "Candace Nizzola!"

A brown-haired girl who had red flames propelling her landed in front of Dumbledore and curtsied with a large smile. "Eleventh grade," she said, and moved in front of the Slytherin table.

"Representing the Water Academy-" started the boy again, but was cut off by the red-haired girl who landed and her blue ice water disappeared.

"Sarah McFlair, tenth grade," she said, slightly nodding her head to Dumbledore before marching in front of the Ravenclaw table.

"Demetrio Gonzales, Earth Academy, ninth grade," said the youngest boy who had had green vines propelling him. He bowed before moving in front of Gryffindor's table.

Finally the oldest boy, propelled by a wind that glowed yellow, landed.

"And I am Makani Kai," he said. "Twelfth grade, from the Air Academy." He bowed as well, and then stood in front of Hufflepuff's table.

The grand entrance complete, the hall burst into applause and cheers.

"Welcome, welcome, exchange students!" said Dumbledore. "By the looks of it, you already know with which house you will be staying. I will make sure that suppers are brought up to your rooms-"

"Slave labor," hissed Hermione.

"Don't start, Hermione," groaned Ron.

"-your classmates will help you adjust," finished Dumbledore. "Now off to bed with all of you, and try and get some sleep before tomorrow!"

As the Hogwarts students got up, Ginny watched as the exchange students looked around, trying to figure out what to do next. Makani was soon surrounded by Hufflepuffs asking him questions, and headed off with them. She was not surprised to see Hermione half-dragging Ron to go introduce themselves as prefects to Demetrio. It looked like Candace had been immediately accepted by Pansy Parkinson and the other Slytherin girls. Sarah, however, hung in the back of the Ravenclaw crowd. It appeared that no one wanted to approach the girl who was surveying them with a piercing look.

"Ginny, are you coming?" called one of her friends, and she turned away and followed the rest of the Gryffindors out of the Great Hall and away from a still dumbstruck Umbridge.

Please review so I know how you like the story so far! Also, as I may have said before, I have had Sarah in my head for 9 years, so I know her character very well, and may accidentally take that for granted. So if you see her reacting to something and don't understand why, or if you are confused and need anything in my story explained, please let me know. Sometimes I may not be able to answer you because you just have to wait and see because it will be explained later on in the plot, but most likely I will fix the problem and try to help you understand Sarah better. I can't know how/if you like it if you don't review, so please do! Thanks, and see you next week for the next chapter!

Haras