Hey guys! Thank you sooo much to any of my new readers. I really hope you're enjoying it. Also a HUGE thank you to my beta reader, SakuraSyaoranLiTRC! I am really excited to start the next chapter cause Willow gets to Hogwarts! Yay!
Willow
We talked about pretty much anything that came to our minds as Harry and Ron devoured more sweets. Instead of being hungry, I felt like I had just been on a roller coaster and my stomach didn't agree. So I tried to calm my nerves by talking nonsense.
I turned to Ron, "Have Fred and George ever actually blown up a toilet?"
Ron shrugged. "I dunno. Not that I've ever heard."
I sighed. "What a shame."
Harry changed the subject. "Willow, you're American right?"
I nodded, "Yeah, how'd you know?"
He laughed, "Well, your accent kind of gives it away."
I blushed furiously "Oh."
Suddenly Ron dropped a box of jelly beans on his rat's head and the animal squeaked once before going back to sleep. Ron sighed and lifted the cardboard off his rat.
"He might have died and you wouldn't know the difference," said Ron in boredom. "I tried to turn him yellow yesterday to make him more interesting, but the spell didn't work. I'll show you, look..."
He rummaged around in his trunk and pulled out a very battered-looking stick. It was chipped in places and something white was glinting at the end. It took me around twenty seconds to realize that it was a wand.
"Unicorn hair's nearly poking out. Anyway-"
He had just raised his wand when the compartment door slid open again with an odd scraping noise. The toadless boy was back, but this time he had a girl with him. I assumed she was a first year since she was rather young and was already wearing her new Hogwarts robes.
"Has anyone seen a toad? Neville's lost one," she said. She had a bossy sort of voice, lots of bushy brown hair, and reminded me a lot of a girl from camp called Annabeth, who was one of my best friends.
"We've already told him we haven't seen it," said Ron, but the girl wasn't listening, she was looking at the wand in his hand.
"Oh, are you doing magic? Let's see it, then."
She sat down. Ron looked taken aback and his candy lay forgotten next to him.
"Er - all right." He said uncertainty.
He cleared his throat.
"Sunshine, daisies, butter mellow,
Turn this stupid, fat rat yellow."
He waved his wand, and suddenly I felt a little cold but still nothing happened to the rat. Scabbers stayed gray and fast asleep.
"Are you sure that's a real spell?" said the girl bossy and sounding a little annoyed. "Well, it's not very good, is it? I've tried a few simple spells just for practice and it's all worked for me. Nobody in my family's magic at all, it was ever such a surprise when I got my letter, but I was ever so pleased, of course, I mean, it's the very best school of witchcraft there is, I've heard - I've learned all our course books by heart, of course, I just hope it will be enough - I'm Hermione Granger, by the way, who are you?"
She said all this very fast. I was still trying to translate her words into something I could understand when I realized that she'd left. I figured that my ADHD had kicked in and I'd missed something in the conversation.
"Whatever house I'm in, I hope she's not in it," said Ron. He threw his wand back into his trunk. "Stupid spell - George gave it to me, bet he knew it was a dud."
"What house are your brothers in?" asked Harry.
"Gryffindor," said Ron. Gloom seemed to be settling on him again. "Mom and Dad were in it, too. I don't know what they'll say if I'm not. I don't suppose Ravenclaw would be too bad, but imagine if they put me in Slytherin."
"That's the house Vol-, I mean, You-Know-Who was in?"
"Yeah," said Ron. He flopped back into his seat, looking depressed.
My eyes went back and forth between them and as the talked my confusion got worse. "Whaaat?" I asked my being raised in America showing clearly with my accent as I drew out the word.
"Houses." Ron raised an eyebrow. "Hogwarts houses. You can earn points for them, you can lose them points, and the house that has the most points at the end of the school year wins the house cup. Gryffindor, Hufflepuf, Ravenclaw, and Slytherin. Ring a bell?"
I had to resist the urge to say 'no' rather sarcastically and instead nodded. "I know what the houses are. Who the heck is 'You Know Who?'"
Ron stared at me in utter disbelief, Harry looked at me curiously, and Scabbers uncurled and ate a gummy worm.
The awkward silence continued until I shrugged and said, "Never mind, I'll look into it. But in the meantime what do you want to do now?"
Both the boys shrugged and simultaneously reached for the same box of candy. In their struggling to get the candy, the box fell on the ground and I snatched it up, reading the label.
"Chocolate frogs?" I raised an eyebrow. "Seriously?"
"They're not really frogs," Harry told me, "I thought so too, but it's just a spell."
I shrugged and opened the blue hexagon. Instantly a chocolate colored frog leaped out of the box and straight up at my face. I dropped the package and shrieked, extremely loudly, scrambling into the seat in an effort to get away from the creature.
Ron snatched the frog off the ground and looked up at me quizzically while rubbing his ears. "What was that about?"
"I wasn't expecting it to jump at me!" I exclaimed still rather terrified.
Ron looked very confused, "Raised in America, has no idea who 'You-Know-Who is and doesn't know about chocolate frogs moving. It's like you're muggle born, but you're not."
I laughed nervously and shrugged uncertainly, "I don't know, I was raised by one of my dad's friends so I never met either of my parents."
"That's because one is in prison." Ron muttered, most likely not intending me to hear.
My jaw dropped, my mom was in prison? Why was I never told? Why was she in prison in the first place? That settled it, I was iris messaging Chiron immediately the next morning to sort this all out. Until then I would have to resign myself to frustrating confusion.
...
I am so sorry it took so long to update I got really busy and I hardly have time to write anymore, it is soooo depressing, but I finally got it out and I'll be updating the other stories soon.
