A/N: Thanks everyone. Here's the next chapter!

Disclaimer: I only own Austin and the other OCs.

We stick together and we see it through
you've got a friend in me
"You've Got a Friend In Me"- Randy Newman

The wedding was not as bad as I thought it would be, thanks to my new best friend Dom. She and I had spent the entire evening talking and avoiding Gilderoy's strange nieces, nephew, and cousins, all of which seemed to be fascinated by us.

"It's like they've never seen a pretty girl before." Dom had grumbled.

We spent the entire evening talking or dancing. Shortly after our Britney dance, my sister-in-law, Rachel, and her sister-from-birth, Victoire, joined us on the dance floor and the four of us had started what Corey referred to as "a commotion attracting stares from all tables and glares from their table". Of course, the four of us hadn't cared; we just kept dancing crazily.

Soon after that though, dinner was served and the four of us sat down at the table again. Which is when Dom and I got to talking. She told me that James was her best friend, and they had another mutual best friend, Lucas Wood. I told her I had no best friend.

We talked about the pressures faced from society and paparazzi. She, being the daughter of Bill and Fleur Weasley (her dad's the head of Gringott's and her mom has a TV talk show…not to mention, she's Harry Potter's niece), and I being the daughter of a best-selling romance novelist and a Quidditch playing musician, both understand what it's like to have people following you because of what your parents do.

"The reason James and I became friends with Luke in the first place is because he actually understood that." Dom confided in me.

Luke, being Lucas Wood, only son of Oliver Wood, former Quidditch Keeper extraordinaire turned current coach, and Adrienne Armstrong, international supermodel. "But he likes his step-mom so much better." His step-mom, I learned, was Alicia Spinnet, best-selling journalist.

She had also told me about her small crush on said best friend. "Except he thinks of me as a sister, so nothing could ever happen." In return, I told her that I thought her cousin James was gorgeous (which he totally was).

So now it's September 1 and I'm standing inside a compartment in the Hogwarts Express and let me tell you, it's freaking awesome. I mean, I've never traveled to school by train before. In America, we don't do that. I've been on the train for a total of ten minutes now and already three different guys have come to hit on me. I'm hoping (though somewhat doubtful) that it's because they haven't had a new girl to flirt with in a while.

Dom comes in the compartment and squeals, rushing over to hug me. At the same time, I rush over to hug her. Now, it doesn't take a genius to figure out that two squealing teenage girls rushing to hug each other should end in disaster. And, of course, it did.

"OW!" We both say, rubbing out foreheads as we look around us. From the doorway, we hear a snicker.

We both look up (seeing as we're on the floor) and see James standing there laughing. With him, is a blond boy, and man, am I impressed.

It is quite easy to understand why these are the two hottest guys in Hogwarts (from what Dom tells me everyone says). I mean, you've got James, who, with his messy black hair and gorgeous blue eyes (how on earth he got blue eyes when his brother has green and his sister has brown is beyond me. Recessive gene?), is just beautiful. And this blond (who I'm taking to be Luke Wood) has these teal eyes that anyone would just melt in.

Apparently, the four of us are a good looking group. I'm getting this from the group of young girls that walked by and pointed at us, claiming to her friends that she "wants to be as pretty as them" (meaning us) when she grows up.

I mean, I guess we're pretty. Oh, who am I kidding? Dom's freaking incredible, with her blonde hair, blue eyes, and Veela gene and I suppose I'm not ugly (ok, not to sound conceited, but I know I'm pretty. Enough people have told me by now that it's stuck in my head) with my shiny brown hair and sparkly hazel eyes.

The boys walk into the compartment, James greeting me with a smile and a nod of his head. "Aus-tin." He said, dragging out the last syllable of my name.

"Ja-ames." I say, taking his one syllable name and turning it into two.

James laughs as he sits down next to me. He points across the compartment to the other bench (where Dom and his friend are now sitting) and says, "That's Luke."

"Hi Luke," I greeted. "I'm Austin."

"Hey Austin," He smiles and I can totally see why Dom has a crush on him. He has a wonderful smile.

"Austin's my new favorite person." James tells his best friend, who looks at him curiously. "Because she doesn't' sleep around nearly as much as she used to." He said, quoting something I had said at the wedding.

"You've just been waiting to say that, haven't you?" I asked.

"Pretty much." Dom answered for him.

Luke ignored us and just responded to James' last statement. "Which implies that she still sleeps around…"

"But that she used to do it all the time." James finished. "And if there's one thing we love…"

"It's a girl who doesn't want a 'relationship," Luke made a face, pretending to show disgust at the thought. "And only wants sex."

"Well I'm your girl for that." I laughed along with them. Relationships weren't really my thing. I mean, come on, my mother's been married five, count 'em, five times. I've seen relationships go wrong pretty much every way possible.

"You're right." Luke told James. "She is definitely our new best friend."

"It's no pressure," Dom had assured me. "But you better be in Gryffindor." Now, I'll be honest. Luke, James, Dom, and I had spent the entire ride here to Hogwarts just laughing and joking around. So, when she told me this while they were leaving to get on a carriage and I was about to follow the little first years to the boats to cross the lake, I hadn't the slightest clue of what she was talking about. But the words had floated around my head, as I joined a couple of kids and waited for my first view of the castle.

Which, if you were wondering, was absolutely beautiful. Like incredible. But we were ushered out of the boats and into a chamber, where a dark haired professor greeted us, introducing himself as Professor Longbottom, Head of Gryffindor House. Well, that solves that problem. Professor Longbottom tells us that we only have to wait a couple minutes, then pulls me aside and tells me, that at the request of Dom (who can be quite scary when she wants to), I will be sorted first. I've yet to decide if this is good luck or not.

Professor Longbottom came back into the chamber and told us to line up because it was time to go. He pulled me up front, right next to him, claiming that he doesn't want to make it obvious that I'm there.

Yeah, ok, Professor Longbottom. I mean, I'm not exactly tall, standing at a whooping 5 feet and 4 inches (technically average height) but compared to these shrimpy little kids, I'm a freaking giant.

Professor Longbottom makes the announcement that there is a new, transfer student and pulls me up front. There's a tattered looking hat sitting on the stool, which he gestures me to sit on, picking the hat up in his hands as I near it.

Suddenly, my eyes, ears, and half of my head is covered.

And the hat starts talking! Yes, talking! Now, even in the magical world, where the unexpected should pretty much be expected, a talking hat is pretty crazy. So, as any normal person would do when an unidentifiable voice is talking to them, I jump about three feet in the air, barely manage to land on the stool again, letting out a loud yelp as this happens.

The hat snickers at me. I'm really not sure how to react to this so I just sit there. The hat starts debating with itself, on Ravenclaw (the hat thinks I'm smart!), Slytherin (because I have a "dark side". Clearly the hat can read my thoughts on the different things I'd like to do to my mother someday.), and Gryffindor (because I, like every other Gryffindor, possess this wonderful ability to blurt out whatever comes to mind without thinking about who it will effect.). When it mentions Gryffindor, Dom's words come to mind again and the hat says," Friends with a Weasley, already? That settles it. GRYFFINDOR!" It shouts that last part and I stand and make my way over to the table clapping loudest.

I walk over to where James, Dom, and Luke are sitting. Dom stands up and leans across the table to hug me. We start wobbling because, come on, it's really hard to hug someone across a huge table, so James, who's to my left, and Luke, who's across from James, reach their hands out to steady us and pull us back on the bench.

James rests his arm on my shoulder after he pulls me down. "How's it feel to be the newest addition to Gryffindor?"

I shrugged. "I don't know. Ask that kid." I point down to the end of the table, where a small blond first year boy is sitting down. I grinned at James.

"Oh yeah," James said, smirking. "We'll get along just fine."

"This school is going to make me fat." I moaned as James, Dom, and Luke show me the way up to Gryffindor tower.

James rolled his eyes. "Why do all girls think they're fat?"

"I don't think I'm fat." I corrected him. "I said, I'm going to be fat."

"Trick step." James warns me, choosing to ignore my last statement. Despite his warning, I step into the trick step anyway. "Man, do you fall over everything?"

"Yes," I said. "Pretty much. You haven't seen anything yet. I can manage to trip on a flat, dry surface. I trip up stairs, fall down them. This is nothing." James and Luke each grab an arm and pull me out, laughing as they did so.

"Man, I can't wait to see that." Luke teased as Dom stops walking. She gives the password to the lady in the portrait, who swings forward to let us in.

I gasp."This is incredible." The others laugh at me, having seen it so many times before. "Look, there's a fireplace." I exclaimed as I grabbed James' arm and point in that direction.

He laughs at my childish antics. "We can go over there." He leads me over there, followed by Dom and Luke. I immediately settle myself down in one of the large, comfy armchairs. James sits on the couch, Luke sits down next to him, and Dom squeezes with me on the armchair.

No sooner do I start wondering why she sat with me (because there was another seat on the couch and a whole other armchair) when two boys join us, one sitting on the couch and the other on the armchair. Clearly, this is a common occurrence.

The boy sitting on the opposite side of Luke on the couch introduces himself as Nick Giaimo. He's not as tall as Luke or James (maybe 5'11 compared to their 6'3), but he's just as gorgeous with beautiful Italian features including dark hair, dark eyes, and olive toned skin. In fact, Dom's decided that we look so much alike (both having previously mentioned dark hair and olive toned skin) that he's going to be my honorary Hogwarts brother.

The other boy, sitting in the arm chair, has lighter brown hair, gray eyes, and is named Scott Hawthorne. He and Nick share a dormitory with Luke and James. Apparently, these four are actually all best friends, although Luke and James, and Nick and Scott are closer with each other. Dom, of course, is practically their princess, a position she both loves and hates.

Around 9:00, Dom pulls me upstairs, so that we can unpack our stuff a little before going to bed. She pulls me in the room, and shows me to my bed, which is next to hers.

A bleach-blonde haired girl brushes past me, glaring at me. I wince and look at Dom.

Dom rolls her eyes. "That's Arielle." She pronounced it AR-ielle, stressing the AR.

"So not like the Little Mermaid?" I ask. Dom looks confused. "Never mind," I say. "Muggle thing." My father, being muggleborn, had drilled it into my mother that he wanted his kids to know their muggle heritage. And my mother had followed through on that.

Dom nods. "Anyway, her name's Arielle Sven. The other two," she gestures over to the other bleach blondes on either side of Arielle. "are her clones, Brittany Guide and Danielle Berman."

"What's with the death glares?" I asked, for all three of the bleached blondes were all glaring at me.

"Well," Dom said, sitting down on my bed. I joined her. "Back in first year, Arielle and I used to be best friends. She used to be really nice, actually. Trust me, it doesn't seem like it anymore, but she did. Right up until third year, when her crush on James started. That's when we really stopped being good friends, but I mean, we were still ok. Until fifth year, when she drunkenly hooked up with James at a party. James, who was really, really, just totally wasted that night, ignored her the next day, and kept ignoring her and one day, she snapped at me and that pretty much ended everything."

"I'm, sorry," I tell her honestly.

She shrugged. "Eh, it's fine." She turned to me. "Besides, I have you now." I grinned and wrapped my arms around her neck. She does the same to me and we sit there for a few moments before both standing up to unpack again.

"Morning sleepyhead." James teases us as Dom and I enter the Great Hall. Both of us look tired, for neither of us had wanted to get up early and go to class after a summer full of sleeping late.

"Coffee." I say, pointing to it.

"Did you sleep alright?" Luke asks.

"Coffee." Dom says, repeating me.

"Did you guys get unpacked alright last night?" James asks, smirking.

"Coffee." I reiterate.

"Did you…" Luke starts to ask, a grin gracing his face.

"Just pass us the goddamn coffee!" Dom practically shouts and James and Luke reach on opposite sides, each handing one of us a pitcher of coffee.

Luckily Professor Longbottom, who overhears her last statement, lets her off with just a warning look. I expect he knows Dom in the morning is not very pleasant. He hands us our schedules, without a word, and continues down the table.

I, unsure of just what I would like to do after school (to be fair, I thought I had another year), took the basic five of Potions, Defense Against the Dark Arts, Transfiguration, Charms, and Herbology, and have every class with James, who wants to do something Quidditch related (Dom says he's good enough to play professionally) and therefore decided to stick to those same basic five.

Luke and Dom, crazy kids that they are, were taking the same five subjects that James and I were, but also adding in Arithmancy. Luke wants to be a curse breaker and Dom just likes math.

I find this school incredibly strange. Students arrive at school September 1, no matter what day it is. It was a Thursday this year. Today is Friday. We have classes today and then a whole weekend off. My mind is totally boggled.

On the plus side, though, it's barely even 9:00 in the morning and already James has informed me that he, Luke, Nick, and Scott are throwing a party tonight. And if there's one thing I love, it's a good party.

A/N: So, what did we think about it? Next chapter should be up pretty soon.