A/N:Hi!Thanks so much if you have read and liked this story, it is much Review, constructive criticism is welcome. Thank you once again becausei'mageek, and ezzirulez, your help is most welcome.I hope you enjoy this chapter, I don't think is as good as the first, I'm trying :)Sorry this was late, I will aim to upload weekly on a tuesday
The sun cascaded across the room, creating a slash across Clara's face. The light made the dust particles dance and shine in the light, making them look like sparkles in the early morning sun. The room was still despite the dust particles, the five sleeping girls silent bar the rumble of deep sleep. Their dreams in their minds, giving light to the exciting adventures that were to come. All of Hogwarts was still on the first morning at school; almost no one was awake at that time, even though it was around five minutes until they had to all wake up in time for breakfast at eight o'clock. The stillness was beginning to get uncomfortable, the light irritating the eyes as it was too bright.
Clara's eyes flickered wearily as she awoke from her slumber. She battered her eyelids adjusting to the brightness of the early morning. After a few moments she gradually, properly woke up, sitting slouched just seconds later. She rubbed her eyes as she surveyed her new surroundings. She looked around in search of a clock, then realised that she had forgotten to remove her watch last night due to her fatigue. It read seven twenty seven; three minutes till when she had been advised to wake up. She lounged back into her bed before groaning and swinging her legs back out the side.
She slowly got up moaning as she went, being careful not to wake everyone else in the dorm. She wandered into the room she believed to be the bathroom. She looked into the mirror that lay above the sink, staring at her reflection. She had wild golden blonde curls that were barely ever tame. At that present moment she looked quite literally like she'd been dragged through a hedge backwards. She rubbed her eyes once more, groggily as she brushed her teeth before returning to her dorm.
She sort of stumbled/galumphed her way back to her bed to grab her things before waking the others up. They all continued to lie peacefully in their sleep. But as she was stumbling half-asleep back to the bathroom she tripped, falling over with a thud onto the hard floor. She cursed under her breath, before getting back up. Though in her tumble it appeared that she had woken Rose, who a few seconds later sat bolt upright and scanned the room like a hawk cautiously.
"Oh no! What's the time? I've overslept. I've missed school. What's my mum going to say? My first day back and I miss it. She's going to kill me!" Rose cried nervously at Clara who rolled her eyes, before explaining how early it was.
"Rose, it's like seven thirty, you're early. Come on get up, we need to wake up the others in a moment," she said before asking, "I'm going in the bathroom to get changed. You don't mind do you?"
"No that's fine. I'll wake the others then I'll get changed actually," she said sleepily rubbing her eyes. Clara re-gathered her things and walked into the bathroom, emerging later to find three girls waiting on their beds, sorting their things.
"I swear there are five of us," Clara said as she looked round questionably, after stopping abruptly as she left the bathroom, "What's her name? Elsa…Emma…El...Eli?"
"Eliza. Yeah, she won't wake up," Rose said casually as she flicked through some books before reaching for her things and walking into the bathroom. Clara sighed tiredly and walked over to Eliza's bed where she took out the alarm clock that was on the bedside table. She turned the dial so it reached a minute before the current time. She set it down on the pillow next to Eliza's ear.
Annabel looked so confused, and sort of worried for Eliza, who despite the fact that she didn't know her further than her name. She was anxious for Eliza who could react many ways to the situation; she hoped it would be laughing it off and nothing against her. She just shook her head and continued with what she was doing
A minute later she found out what the answer was. The alarm blared from the simple black alarm clock. It ran all through all through the dorm, very loudly. Even Rose shouted 'What was that' from the bathroom despite it having Muffliato on the walls.
"It was an alarm!" Poppy shouted back. Eliza, who already was grumpy from the alarm, pushed her hands back to her head.
"God Poppy! You do realise that the time is before eight in the morning," Eliza said as she rubbed her head once more, "Ahhh! I hate mornings," she grumbled as she begrudgingly ambled over to the mirror in the dorm.
"Don't we know," Clara tutted airily as she left her bed and looked out the window from the ledge that acted as a seat to all. The girls could see the black lake from their dorm; the deep water glistened in the early morning light. The water rippled gently due to the very light breeze that was present that morning. There were few clouds around, so the sun beamed across the valley that Hogwarts was in. No one was outside; or so she thought.
On a bench just outside the Owlery, Albus Severus Potter sat, already dressed in his school uniform, minus the cloak but in a coat. He rubbed his hands together in the crisp air, because despite the bright sun, the air was still crisp and had a sort of autumnal feel to it. There were multiple reasons as to why he was out there so early; firstly he had woken up at five am, so the open air seemed like a good plan that morning. Also early morning walks were his thing; back home on many mornings, when he hadn't had that much sleep or just had awoken early, he would grab his coat and shoes and walk round the small village that the Potters lived in. It was a very small village with no shop, pub or post office, just public foot paths, farms and houses. He would walk right up to the furthest farm that still counted as inside the small area then would walk back across the huge fields that were usually used for rape plants. During the summer, walking across those fields, it felt like walking through triffids( he hadn't read 'Day of the Triffids', but his aunt Hermione had. Once he had walked with her when she had taken an interest in where he went often in the mornings).
That morning at about quarter to eight he was sat on the small bench, pondering over all that was to come. The year that he was about to experience was going to be one of the best he had ever had; but he didn't know that yet. He held his hands now in front of his face, as if praying, but it was just a habit he had for when he was thinking, hard. He didn't have a clue why he did it though.
Everything was getting to him. His mum always said to come outside when it got too much, he wasn't very good at coping with a lot going on. He worried often because of this. He could just picture his mum rubbing his back saying softly that it was fine, it reassured him that she was just a floo or a letter away, but she wasn't actually present. It wasn't like he had never been away from his parents before, he had often stayed at family members places, but this was the first definite not seeing them for months. But he could always just contact them. He was just nervous for the future as he should be. He then sighed heavily and got up, and walked back to his dorm to get ready for breakfast.
Ten minutes later five tired girls walked down the stairs chattering as they went down to the Great Hall for breakfast. They walked into the somewhat cheery atmosphere of the giant hall. Clara looked around the room for the people she was searching for. She found them sitting next to their siblings talking to them loudly. She then walked with a bit more purpose, and with Rose she sat down. She was opposite Albus and Louis opposite Rose. The talk was on Quidditch once again, Rose immediately rolled her eyes when she heard what they were talking about.
"No they aren't going to win! You must be joking they will never win! NEVER!" James exclaimed louder than the rest as he buttered his toast.
"You're the one that's joking!" Fred exclaimed.
Molly who was sitting beside Clara, also wasn't that interested in Quidditch so was talking to a boy sitting next to James.
"So do you like books?" Rose said, as there weren't any conversations that really struck her fancy.
"Yeah, I read loads. I am guessing you do to; you were reading yesterday on the train," Clara replied as she dug into her cereal. Cereal that her mum wouldn't approve of, due to its high sugar content. For some reason her mums dislike of the cereal appeared to make it taste slightly better. A bit like when ice-cream tastes better in the tub than in a bowl or cone.
"Who do you like?" Rose responded eagerly. She always perked up when the conversation turned to books. A trait she had inherited from her mum.
"Umm…well I guess I like Phillip Pullman. I read Northern Lights about a year ago and I then went on to read the other two within that week. I also love dystopias, though the library I had near me lacked on good books sadly," Clara said looking up as she pondered over her favourite books.
"That's so weird, I love Northern Lights. My mum read it when she was about fourteen; one of her primary school friends had recommended it to her. Despite her being a bit old for the book she adored it and virtually made me read it. Thankfully I enjoyed it thoroughly," she said smiling sheepishly, "I love muggle books. My mum makes sure that I read a wide scale of books, muggle and wizard ones."
"I haven't read any wizarding books yet. Are they any good?" Clara asked as she poured herself more tea, she was rather patriotic.
"Sorry! Do you mind if I just take that? Sorry we've run out of tea here!" Eliza said sweetly as she came behind Clara.
"No, of course!" She said smiling.
"Yeah they are, I will tell you some titles later."
The people around Clara and Rose had finished there conversations and were now looking around the room as if they were in search of something.
"What are you looking for?" Clara said confused as to what was going on.
"Well, we get our timetables this morning, and McGonagall should have already handed them put," Molly said. Shortly after the teachers came round with timetables in hand. Naturally the youngest got theirs first.
"Okay, Potter, Weasley, Weasley and you must be Clara Lake," Professor Longbottom said as he rifled through his pile of sheets, then handed them out to the children, before he then walked further down the table and handed the timetables out to the rest of their housemates.
"What've you got?" James said as he swivelled round to face his brother who proceeded to groan loudly. Albus handed the timetable over to his brother.
"Ha ha, yours is awful. Potions, care of magical creatures, astronomy and charms all on the same day. Have fun!" James said laughing. His smile was wiped of his face however when he received his timetable moments later from Flitwick.
"Not so funny now then!" Albus joked, James rolled his eyes.
"Right anyone coming? We've got DADA first so we need to hurry up," Albus said as he got up to leave.
"Sure, one sec…"Clara said as she lept up and drank the last dregs of her tea.
"See you in ten, I just want to finish this toast," Rose said as they left the table. They walked out of the hall and chatted as they climbed the steps on the way to the common room to grab their bags, then to go the DADA classroom.
"So this is nice isn't it" Clara said smiling as the climbed they climbed the stairs out of the Great Hall.
"Yeah, the outside is nice as well. I went out early this morning," He said chuckling slightly.
"Why did you go out early?" she asked very confused, but giggling.
"Oh well, it's fun to go out early sometimes in the mornings. It's a good place to think you know."
"Oh right," She said rather sceptically.
They were rather quiet until they got up to the common room, which wasn't really loud or anything it was still early morning and most were at breakfast anyway.
"I'm going to grab my things. So shall we meet back here in five?" He said as he climbed the stairs to his dorm.
"That's fine," she said as she walked up also and opened the door to her dorm room. The room was empty, obviously, it had a peculiar sort of stillness to it. She had already packed before she had left, so all she needed to do was grab her books and leave. She picked up her books and bag, and then wondered over to the mirror to check her hair. Parted in the side, two plaits meeting at the back of her head.
A few minutes later she returned to the common room, where Albus waited, preoccupied in his thoughts.
"Hello! Shall we go or shall we wait for the others?" Clara asked as she wafted her hands in front of his face, so he would stop staring into space.
"Oh yeah! Sorry! Umm…yeah we should probably wait for them yeah. They came up a few moments before you came down," he said as he slowly snapped out of it and sat down on the sofa opposite the fireplace. Clara followed and sighed very loudly as she slumped onto the sofa as well.
"Ugh!" She exclaimed to nothing in particular.
"My sentiments exactly," Albus replied.
"Albus, I have a question," Clara asked moments later, suddenly slightly more engaged into the atmosphere than before.
"It's Al by the way but go on," Al said, he hated the name Albus, but he had to introduce himself as that as Al was a slightly odd name. His second name wasn't really much better; Severus. He got that they were the names of very courageous people that meant a lot to his dad and mum, but his sister was Lily Luna, which was much better in his opinion. At least James was a normal name, and Sirius in his opinion was actually a cool name.
"Well I was wondering…" Clara started before Louis rushed in flowed by Rose, Poppy, Chris, Annabel (who during breakfast had told everyone it was Anna) Eliza, Lewis and John the quietist member of their group. Basically all of Dorm Rooms A, boys and girls alike. There were B dorm rooms but it appeared that they were a bit more punctual when it came to lessons.
Clara glanced at her watch, and her smile dropped. She quickly told them that they needed to go now, as the lesson was either just starting or about to start. They then all rushed through the portrait hole and clambered down the stairs, not really knowing the way. Victoire had given them a rough idea of where classes were but no one was really sure. They sprinted down the corridors outside the courtyard until they eventually, with no minutes to spare, found the classroom. They were having their lesson with the Hufflepuffs. They ran into the room to find that despite the lesson not starting yet, Professor Kirk was still standing by the desk surveying the class. His first class at Hogwarts, and theirs too, which was nice. He was a stern looking man, but had a lean face and black ruffled hair, which resembled Harry Potters actually, a thought that was running through Al's head as he took his place next to Louis.
Kirk was a young man, who had trained as an Auror, but had sustained an injury within his last year in training which meant that he couldn't continue doing missions, so he decided that rather than do all the planning in an office, he would return to the lesson he had enjoyed the most at school, Defence Against The Dark Arts. He was a strong man with a great talent for non-verbal spells that had come in handy when he was training, but he did prefer teaching the simple stuff so that was what he did first.
After everyone had settled in their seats he walked behind his desk, and turned to the chalkboard that was adjacent to it, and wrote his name on it.
"Okay. Hello class, as you know I am Professor Kirk, Sir or Professor to you. This is my first lesson teaching so I am nervous, as are you. I am going to try and not be boring, but there are a few simple things we need to do firstly," Kirk started as he walked around his desk, chuckling nervously, when he mentioned, that he was nervous. He then went on to talk about what they were going to cover that year. What he would expect from them, like homework etc.
The first lesson was basically establishing his methods and what was going to happen; they would later find out that the same would go for almost all their first lessons.
"So that was rather boring wasn't it? He seems nice enough though?" Rose said as they left the classroom and headed for the green houses for Herbology.
"I see what you mean, but James said most of our first lessons are boring. Apparently you don't do anything practical within the first week or month," Al said with a hint of annoyance in the matter, he wasn't one for boring lessons.
"Well we've got Herbology next and Professor Longbottoms nice so that should be fine," Rose said as they dropped their bags and entered the warm Green house. Longbottom was already stood at the other end of the room, waiting for the last people to enter so he could start promptly. A few children trickled in, but he deemed it time to start so he stepped forward and spoke,
"Okay, so you know who I am. Come on you two at the back, yes you step forward please. You will hear the same things throughout this week and I'm sorry for that but that's just how it is I'm afraid…" Longbottom spoke.
The day rambled on and the once very bright and cheerful faces fell to glum half dead ones. They were very excited by the time lunch came, as that meant only one more lesson to go. In fairness they hadn't got any homework so it looked as though they would have a nice free evening but they had transfiguration which was renowned for lots of homework, but they were having a new teacher who looked very nice and pleasant, maybe things would change? The dreary Monday continued, and the weather worsened as did the moods. The sky wasn't bright and sunny as it had been that morning, it was now overcast and the onset of rain was present.
Luckily Transfiguration went rather fast, possibly the fact that no one wanted to be there, even Professor Clearwater was dreading it slightly, but that was mainly nerves, which she didn't like to get the better of her. They tried honestly to be attentive but it didn't really work and even the professor was sick by the end and couldn't wait to get on with doing the spells and things.
They all rushed out of the classroom when they were dismissed, a few minutes before they should have been. They all clambered up the stairs to go and do various activities.
"I'm going for a walk, anyone want to come?" Al said hopefully as he swung himself onto a chair in the common room. There were many shaking heads, but Clara nodded as she didn't mind if it rained, she loved the rain, and she did need some space and time to think.
"Sure, I'll get changed. I'll be down in five, that okay?" she said as she rushed up the steps. He nodded and returned to his dorm to do the same. She emerged from her room three minutes later in jeans, a hoodie and converse, her natural attire. Al was already waiting when she came down the stairs.
"Come on lets go, no one else want to come?" He said as he turned back to his family and friends who were exhausted, and sprawled across the couches. He was once again met with many shakes of heads. Clara and Al then turned back and walked out of the portrait hall into the busy stairway, which was loud and full of people. They fought their way through the crowds and then got to the entrance hall where they went straight on, into the school grounds. They put their hands in their pockets and just walked. They needed the free air and time. They walked in silence for a while until they stopped when they reached a nice bench, with a good scenic view.
"So can I ask you a question? I don't mind if you don't want to answer it," Clara asked nervously, she didn't have a clue why she was nervous she was just curious as to how he would react to the question.
"Umm…yeah sure, what is it?" he answered a bit confused.
"Well, I was wondering what your parents did? As you all appeared shocked when I didn't know them, and all Louis said was that they were famous. As I said you don't have to answer," Clara asked quickly.
"Well… Okay. Umm… It's hard to explain actually, it's a very long story. But in short my dad when he was one and a half survived the killing curse from a very evil and dark wizard, who killed my grandparents that same night. They thought that the evil wizard was defeated once and for all that night, but sadly this wasn't the case. Throughout all his school life, at the end of each actually he would try and kill him again. Dad tried to kill him, and with the help of his best friends, Rose's parents, the dark wizard was defeated in the battle of Hogwarts. And as the wizard was so famous, naturally so was my dad, air go so am I," He said slowly making sure that what he was saying was making enough sense for Clara to understand.
"What about Louis, Fred and Molly?" she asked after saying sorry multiple times, she felt responsible as she'd brought it up.
"Well they're all my cousins, as you know. My mum had six brothers, all of whom were involved in the war. Ron, Rose's dad, was one. Louis dad, Bill another. Molly's dad, Percy and Fred's dad George," he said miming with his hands as he explained, "I've talked about my family, so what about yours?"
"Well I have a sister, Katie, who is a year younger than me. My mum as I said didn't go here and was a muggle. And well my dad passed away when I was four. I don't really remember him so it isn't that sad. I grew up with my mum and sister and we cope. I don't like to talk about it though," she said slowly stuttering over the bit about her dad, as although she hadn't really known him, it was still sad and depressing to talk and think about.
"Sorry, I didn't know," Albus said sadly as he patted Clara's back, not in an awkward or creepy way, an empathetic one.
"No, it's fine. You would've found out anyway. Just don't tell everyone. People always say and go on and on about how hard it must be and telling me how sad I should feel. But honestly I didn't know him and I just grew up without him. To me he's just a faceless face that I wish I could have. It doesn't make sense I know," Clara said, she wasn't the crying sort but this matter sometimes did bring tears. The small droplets rolled down her wet cheeks, she wiped them off, and shook her head.
"Sorry, for bringing it up," Al said once again with honesty. They sat in silence for a long while after this. They only talked again after the drizzle started.
"Do you want to go in?" Al asked Clara shook her head; fortunately AL had the same feelings. They just sat there on the bench letting the rain fall onto them, deep in thought.