Chapter 4
Hogwarts Again
September first came before I had expected it to. I was careful pack Scorpius' shirt when no one was watching. I was glad was able to wash it the Muggle way when everyone was outside and they thought I had to go to the washroom. I packed my trunk as quickly as possible, put Jimmie in his cage and went downstairs. We walked to King's Cross, as usual. On the way Al dropped his trunk and it opened up, spilling all its contents everywhere. James cleaned the messed up quicker than a blink of an eye.
We reached the station and went through the magical barrier between platforms nine and ten and reached Platform Nine and Three Quarters. Al went to catch up with his friends and Sri and I looked for Jeremy and Will. First we found William, who had unnecessarily grown a couple of inches taller. Jeremy was already on the train, looking for a compartment. He smiled at us and we started the hunt for an empty compartment. Sri had to go meet with the Head Boy and Head Girl and only came around after the lunch trolley had gone by. Jeremy, Will and I found a compartment near the back of the train and settled in.
Jeremy was talking about how he had gone to Egypt in August. He was saying that the pyramids were his favourite part when a shy looking first year turned up in our compartment and blushed. She turned to leave but I said, "Where are you going? Don't you want to sit with us?" She looked really gratefully at me. She sat down beside Sri as Jeremy and Will put her trunk in an overhead shelf.
"What's your name?" I asked.
"Rachel Frederickson. My mum's a witch and my dad's a Muggle," she answered so quietly I hardly heard her.
"You'll love it at Hogwarts," said Will beaming. Blushing she left me guessing that she didn't get much attention from boys. This surprised me, she was very pretty. I was sure all the boys would be after her. "You will, I hope you're in Gryffindor," broke in Jeremy. "We're all in that house." He pointed at everyone.
"She isn't stupid Jer."
We arrived at Hogwarts when it was already dark and the horseless carriages were waiting for us. "Rachel goes with Hagrid, he's gamekeeper and Care of Magical Creatures teacher, and he always takes first years up to the castle by boat, remember?" said Sri as Jeremy almost lead her to one of the carriages with them. "Oh, right," he said looking slightly embarrassed. She looked longingly at the carriages pulled by Thestrals and edged towards Hagrid very slowly. "Um... Jeremy? Are you okay? Remember that she's eleven years old," Sri complained as Jeremy stared after Rachel. It's just that she reminds me so much of my sister, Carol. I just want to make sure she's okay, it's her first year, remember how nervous we were in our first year?"
"You're right," she agreed.
The night was really hot and I was glad to reach the castle. We waited for what seemed like hours at the four house tables until the first years finally showed up looking extremely sweaty. Professor Morning-Glory placed the Sorting Hat on a four legged stool.
It started to sing but I got distracted by a guy sitting a few seats down from at the Gryffindor table. It took me a while to realize that he was waving at me and it took me even longer to find out that it was Charles Lynch. Charles was captain of the Gryffindor Quidditch team and son of some famous Quidditch player. Long story short, any girl, unless of course you were a Slytherin, would've died to have Lynch waving at them.
Every single year whenever there were Quidditch tryouts he asked me to join the team. Of course my excuse of not having a broom always had worked but now... "Hey, Potter I heard you got a new broom. The fastest one in the whole wide world, they don't even have one as fast in China. You better be at the tryouts in two week." I rolled my eyes and nodded my head, "Fine," I said, "I'll be there..."
"Shush!" I heard Jeremy's voice in my ear. "They're about to sot people into they're houses."
"Oh I hope Rachel's in our house," Sri said beside me. "She seemed very sweet."
Professor Morning-Glory took out the usual long roll of parchment with the names of first year students. "Airman, Jill." The Sorting Hat was placed on her head and it fell down well past her pale blue eyes. The Hat pondered where to put her for a second and the shouted, "Ravenclaw!" There were cheers from the Ravenclaw table as Jill took her seat. People went on getting sorted until a name caught my attention, "Fredrickson, Rachel." I held my breath and crossed my fingers. The Sorting Hat was taking and exceptionally long time to decide. After about five minutes it shouted out, "Gryffindor!" I clapped extra hard, happy that not everyone in her new house was a stranger.
I scooted over and waved her to sit between Sri and me. She sat down and I patted her on the back saying, "Congratulations, I'm glad you're in our house and not in Slytherin."
"The Hat had a really hard time sorting me," she said, ten times more confident than earlier. "He wanted to put me in Ravenclaw, because he said I had the potential of being the cleverest witch my age; but then he wanted me in Slytherin because I was apparently powerful; and then in Hufflepuff because of my 'kind heart'" She seemed to be enjoy telling me the Sorting Hat's thoughts. "But it finally decided Gryffindor because above everything I was brave," she beamed, proud of herself.
Professor Pencaple, Headmaster of Hogwarts stood up and said, "Please eat before it gets too late or else I might have to give a speech on an empty stomach." He chuckled at his own joke and sat down.
Immediately the golden plates in front of us filled up with food, magically. The beef reminded me of the colour of Scorpius' shirt and that I needed to give back to him so when I thought no one was looking I threw a crumpled up napkin at his head. He turned around looking really annoyed until he saw my face. I mouthed the words shirt and ten o'clock. He nodded and mouthed Room of Requirement? I smiled forming the words where else?
At half past nine everyone was already in their dormitories, feeling sleepy from the feast, which had been delicious. At five to ten I got out of bed and put on a sweater over my pyjama t-shirt. I grabbed the t-shirt, sneaked out of my dorm and past the Fat Lady. I climbed the staircase to the seventh floor corridor and found Scorpius waiting looking at his watch. I walked towards him. He looked up at the sound of my footsteps. He smiled, pointed at his watch and said, "You're late." I observed and whispered, "By what, twenty seconds?" He laughed and came closer. I handed him his shirt and said, "I should get going. See you around?" I smiled at him and he replied, "Duh, we go to the same boarding school. I'll see you later."
I heard footsteps shuffling towards us and realised it was the caretaker, Cheswick. Scorpius grabbed my hand and led me into a newly formed door. Inside it was cramped but at least we were safe from the evil clutches of Cheswick. Only when he left did I start to feel embarrassed of being so close to Scorpius. I mean, I'm talking nose to nose, literally. I blushed and said in an unconvincing casual tone, "Er-well, I'd better get to bed; OWL year's supposed to be tricky."
"Yeah I should go too," he replied obviously equally embarrassed. "NEWT is supposed to be worst."
We squeezed out and with one last embarrassed look at each other went our separate ways.
That morning at breakfast Professor Longbottom, Head of Gryffindor house, handed out the time tables. "Oh, damn it!" I heard Jeremy complain, "First we have double Herbology with Slytherin." The three of us groaned. Just because Scorpius was my friend didn't mean I liked the Slytherins. Except for him they were all a bunch of stuck up snobs who thought they were better than anybody who crossed their path. I looked down at my time table and found out it was the truth, the oh so depressing truth. Not that Herbology was boring or anything, it could be quite enjoyable with Professor Longbottom teaching. After lunch I had History of Magic and then Care of Magical Creatures with the Ravenclaws. Looking at the rest of the week I was glad I hadn't taken Divination. It was, according to Jer and Sri, the worst torture that anyone had ever invented.
We walked through the grounds to Greenhouse 4 and an unpleasant surprise met us on the way. Oliver Grey was blocking the entrance to the greenhouse. Grey was a skinny fifth year who was about ninety feet tall. He had mousy brown hair and yellow eyes, like a snakes. "Get out of the way, unlike you, we want to actually pass our OWLs," growled Jeremy. Grey obviously had no intention of moving I threatened, "Get out of our way or I'll stun you so badly it'll send you to Tartarus." Will and Sri looked surprised, while Grey looked confused. "I'm sorry but, what the hell is Tartarus?" he asked. "Oh, that's right. Someone as important as a 'pure-blood'," Sri made air quotations with her hands, "wouldn't bother learning Muggle mythology."
"I'm surprised that Sumter here goes to Muggle studies. You know, being a Mudblood and all," he sneered. Everything happened in a flash Jeremy was on top of Grey and both Sri and I had aimed different hexes at him. Professor Longbottom came out of Greenhouse 4 in time to prevent Jer from getting all his teeth knocked out. "Please, what is going on here that makes it necessary for Mister Jordan to have a broken nose and Mister Grey to have- are those blueberries?- sprouting out of his head?"
"He called me a Mudblood," Will piped up in a dignified voice.
"Well that will be ten points from Slytherin for using offensive terminology and five from Gryffindor, each, for starting a fight," punished Professor Longbottom without mercy.
We left the greenhouses two hours later, our minds well lectured on the importance of Ordinary Wizarding Levels, and leaving me thinking that I was going to fail everything. Sri said otherwise, because apparently I was best in every class. Just because I got top marks didn't I was best, "Remember, you're the Prefect, not me." I reminded her.
"You know, I think being Prefect has more to do with something else than grades," Will pointed out, "Because if it didn't Lily would've been Prefect."
"I'm glad Sri and Hugo are fifth year Prefects. And then there's Nathan and Grace as sixth year Prefects while Rose and Al are Head Boy and Girl," I counted them off on my fingers.
"Guess Sri and Grace are the only Gryffindors who were successful without being Weasleys," Jer laughed.
"Oh, shut up," I retorted.
After lunch Will and I headed to Professor Binns classroom, while Jeremy and Sri went up to the North Tower for Divination.
As usual, everyone was yawning and getting heavy eyed within five minutes of the class starting. Somehow, even though I didn't pay any attention in class I had gotten Os (outstanding) on all of my previous History of Magic exams. Professor Binns went on and on about some kind of witch that had discovered Devil Snare's weakness or something like. Or maybe we'd learnt that in Herbology. Whatever, I wasn't paying attention, end of story.
Half an hour later we made our way down to Hagrid's hut. I wondered how old Hagrid actually was. Whatever his age he was great and he made the best tea in the world. I him saw near a giant paddock. His hair was pearly white and his black beetle-like eyes stood out. In the paddock was what looked like a giant feathered lion. "Hagrid, what are you doing with that griffin?" I asked. "Thought we'd go over 'em in yer OWL year." He replied
That night while we headed up to Gryffindor Tower, complaining about all the homework that we'd been given (four foot long report about goblin rebellions and two feet of parchment about the dangers of hurting a griffin's feelings). Sri complained, "We need to write all of our dreams in a journal and then predict them for Divination. Fraudwell wants us to do that all the way until the Christmas hols!"
"What!" spat Will. "Doesn't Frallwell usually like, not give you homework on the first day because she's too busy telling you about how great she is?"
"Well she usually does but a certain someone's Prefect cousin," Jeremy looked straight me, "said that we heard this every year and it was getting boring."
"So she got furious. I thought she was going to take out her wand and hex him right there on the spot, but she didn't, thank goodness," explained Sri
"Do you something for a certain Hugo Weasley?" teased Jeremy.
"No!" we said at the same time.
"Just kidding! No need to get upset!" he said defensively.
We reached the Fat Lady, gave her the password (Gillywater) and entered the common room to see the biggest mess in the world. Fred, Alex and they're friend Greg Finnegan had set off a bunch of Weasley Wizard Wheezes brand fireworks. The scene was funny with the first years running around screaming, "Don't let it burn me!" and the Prefects (including Sri) trying to take control of the situation. The Portrait Hole opened up behind me and Rose came in.
She was holding hands with her boyfriend Carlisle Palomino. I always called him pony, which annoyed both him and Rose immensely. For a second she looked taken aback. But that only lasted a second before she said, or better shouted, "Who's been setting off these damn fireworks again?" she looked and Greg, Alex and Fred holding their sides. "Of course, I shouldn't have even asked." She rolled her eyes and walked towards them. "Put them away, now before I put in detention!"
They groaned and opened the windows to let the fireworks out. The first years calmed down and I got started on my homework, knowing that the year was going to be long. Rose looked around and exclaimed outraged, "Where's Al! Oh when I find him..." With this she left the common room, setting out to look for my older brother.