Sorry it's been a while! Hope you enjoy this chapter

Peace,

Ciara xxx

Chapter 7

It was amazing. The giant round room was completely covered in red and gold. There were comfortable looking armchairs on the edges of the room, and a cluster by the enormous fireplace. Already the seats were filling up with current students.

"Okay, so the tower up to your left is the boys dormitories and bathroom," the prefect announced. "This is the same for the girls in the tower on the right. Your trunks have already been brought up, your schedules will be given to you tomorrow at breakfast which is at eight till nine."

Liz grabbed Ginny's hand and hurtled up the stairs, faintly aware of Seamus doing the same with Lorcan. Soon coming to the first year dorms, the two girls burst into the room. Immediately, Liz caught sight of one four poster bed situated right by a window alcove. She threw herself onto said bed while Ginny took the one on the other side of the window.

Ginny looked across at Liz. "You too?"

"What? Oh, you mean the window thing? Yeah, I need some way to see outside, to see-"

"The sky," Ginny finished for her. The two redheads grinned at each other; it was as if they could sense that they would become the best of friends.


The next day, Liz and Ginny descended the staircase, their uniforms on and their hair brushed. Seeing four seats in the corner of the room, they quickly sat down to wait for the boys; they'd agreed to go down to breakfast together.

As they sat there, Liz could feel many eyes flicking in their direction; she shifted uncomfortably in her seat. Hurry up guys, hurry up guys…

Finally Seamus bounded down from the boys' dorm, Lorcan following.

"Hello!" the Irish boy grinned at the girls. "Off to breakfast!"


Once again, an enormous feast lay in wait for the four eleven year olds in the Great Hall. They sat down at the Gryffindor table, piling up their plates.

As the post came, a box was dropped in front of a boy down the table; Neville Longbottom. He pulled out a small glass ball. "What the…"

"I know what those are," Hermione exclaimed from down the table. "They're called Remembralls."

"Hermione, leave the kid alone," Ron sighed.

"What's a Remembrall?" Liz asked.

"A Remembrall is an enchanted glass ball filled with smoke," Hermione explained, ignoring Ron's eye-rolling. "When the smoke turns red, it means you've forgotten something."

"So… what did I forget?" Neville looked down at the ball of smoke, which had gone red at his touch. Liz shrugged and turned back to her breakfast.

"You're seriously going to eat all that?" Lorcan glanced at Liz's plate.

"Uh…" Liz looked at him. "Yeah, that's what I intend to do with it…"

"But you're so… small."

"No judging by size! Besides, Ginny's small too and she's eating just as much as me." A glance in the other redhead's direction confirmed this.

"Gryffindor first years!" Professor McGonagall glided down the aisle, handing out sheets of paper. She stopped at the foursome. "Your timetables." Each of them received a sheet of paper. "Until you can take the optional classes, all students will have the same timetable as the other first years in their houses." The friends grinned at each other. "Oh, and Miss Potter?" Liz looked up at the stern teacher. "You would do well not to follow in your father's footsteps where it concerns his sense of… humour."

"Will do, Professor M," Liz grinned. With an exasperatedly raised eyebrow, the professor turned and marched towards the door.

"So," Ginny leant forward. "What do we have first?"

Seamus scanned his sheet, and visibly paled. "Potions."


"There, look."

"Where?"

"Next to the gangly one with the dark-ish hair."

"The redhead?"

"Yeah."

"... which one?"

"Slightly taller."

"Did you see her face?"

"Did you see her scar?"

"Are they going to shut up any time soon?" Lorcan muttered.

"It's not too bad," Liz said cheerfully, waving at a second year, whose jaw dropped and started whispering to their friends.

"It's hard enough trying to find the classes around here," Seamus complained.

There were a hundred and forty two staircases at Hogwarts- well, that's what the foursome thought. There were wide, sweeping ones, narrow rickety ones, some that led somewhere different on a Friday, some with a vanishing step that you had to remember to jump- it was very hard to keep track of them. Then there were the doors.

Some wouldn't open unless you asked politely, some wouldn't open unless you tickled them in the right place. Some weren't even doors at all; they were walls pretending to be doors. The four young Gryffindors tried to remember corridors by particular paintings or magical artefacts, but that didn't work either. Liz asked another second year who'd stammered something out about the paintings liking to visit each other.

"Okay!" Ginny grabbed Lorcan's arm. "This is just stupid. That suit of armour is following us."

"We just want to get to Transfiguration!" Seamus yelled at the ceiling, startling a few students and reminding them that The Girl Who Lived walked among them. "Is that so hard to ask? Please?!"

As if answering the boy's question (which, knowing the castle as they did now, was probably what it was doing) a door appeared and opened to them.

"Well," Liz said, walking through the door and sighing with relief when she noted they were now on the right floor. "I have a feeling everything else will be fine and dandy compared to Potions."

Ginny laughed. "Yeah, Snape doesn't seem to like you."

Liz sighed, this time in depression as she recalled that morning's Potions class.


Potions lessons were always held down in the dungeons of the castle. Liz hated to think what had happened where she now sat, waiting for her first lesson of Hogwarts.

As Snape took register, Liz looked to her left. And found a toad looking back at her. Startled, she looked up at the shelf- every jar held some dead animal, floating in a preserving liquid.

"Miss Potter." Her name carried through the room. At first Liz had thought she'd missed a question, but it turned out the Potions professor had simply reached her name in the register. "Our new... celebrity." Malfoy and his friends snickered while Liz held her head up high.

Not looking up from his desk, Snape began a long speech about the art of potion making and how he could teach them to bottle fame, brew glory, stopper death... if they weren't like the usual dunderheads he usually taught.

"Potter!" he said suddenly, still not looking up from his parchment. "What would I get if I added powdered root of asphodel to an infusion of wormwood?"

Powdered root of afodel and a fusion of what now? Liz raised an eyebrow at Ginny, who shrugged; Lorcan's hand was in the air, calmly waiting to be picked.

"I don't know, professor."

Snape seemingly ground his teeth at the casualness in Liz's voice. "Well obviously, fame isn't everything. Let's try this again: where would you look if I told you to find me a bezoar?" Again, Liz was stumped; Lorcan's hand remained in the air while he looked over Seamus' shoulder at some doodle the latter was drawing.

"I don't know, professor," Liz replied idly, flicking a scrap of parchment across the desk.

"You do realise that in order to learn, you must open a book, Potter?"

"I did read it, professor."

"Oh? Then why can't you answer my questions?"

"I said I read it, I didn't say I swallowed it," Liz muttered so quietly only Ginny could hear; the other redhead next to her silently shook with laughter.

"Potter, what's the difference between monkshood and wolfsbane?" The Potions Master still hadn't lifted his gaze from whatever he was writing.

Still, Lorcan's hand was in the air; he deserved some credit while Liz was bombarded with questions. Unsure of what to, do, Liz resorted to her first weapon of choice: humour.

"Not a clue, professor," Liz said cheerfully. "But I think Lorcan does, maybe you should try him?"

A few students laughed, and Seamus winked at Liz. But the joke did not go well with the professor.

"For all you dunderheads' information, asphodel and wormwood combined create a sleeping potion so powerful it is called Draught of Living Death. A beazor is found inside the stomach of a goat and can save your life from most poisons. Monkshood and wolfsbane are the same thing, and can also be called aconite." There was silence. "Well? Write this down." The students scrambled for ink and parchment. Snape stood up and faced Liz. "Also, one point from Gryffin..." he trailed off, staring at the young girl. The girl in question slightly cocked her head to the side, as she always did in confusion. His eyes widened at that as well. Suddenly, the Potions Master shook his head ferociously.

"One point from Gryffindor for cheek... Potter."


The lesson hadn't gotten any better from there, Liz remenisced with a sigh. Neville Longbottom had melted his cauldron and the potion had gotten everywhere. Everyone had jumped up onto their chairs but Neville was burnt badly. As soon as Neville was led out of the room towards the hospital wing, Snape had rounded on Liz, claiming that Liz didn't stop the boy from adding the porqupine quills before taking the cauldron off the fire in order for her to look good. Liz told him that she was focusing on her own potion with Ginny. He'd deducted another point from their house.

They finally found the Transfiguration classroom where, luckily, there was no Professor McGonagall yet; just a cat sitting on the desk.

"Great, she isn't here," Seamus sighed with relief. "Imagine her face if she saw us right now."

The cat jumped off the table and in mid-leap, grew to take the form of a woman. A stern, Transfiguration professor to be exact.

"Can I just say: that was wicked, professor," Seamus stated. An awed Ginny nodded in agreement.

"Thank you, Mr Finnigan; though I would be most grateful if you could enter the classroom with the rest of the students. Maybe I could transfigure one of you four into a watch, so the others will be on time."

"We got lost, professor," Liz piped up.

"Then perhaps another into a map. Honestly, the amount of gallivanting you do, you'd need one to get back on track." She instantly regretted her words as she saw a look on their faces; a look she hadn't seen for almost thirteen years. She shook her head and turned back to her desk. Perhaps they wouldn't be as bad as the boys...


The Friday of the first week came soon, as did the flying lessons. The Gryffindor first years hurried down the steps, eager to start.

"As soon as second year comes, I'm trying out for Chaser." Ginny was almost bouncing with excitement. "It's like a 'personal goal' for me. That's what my brother Percy said when he first started Hogwarts: 'it is my personal goal to be Head Boy one day'. What about you guys?"

"Beater," Seamus said immediately.

"My brothers have that position."

"What, Ron and Percy?"

"No, Ron won't try out because he thinks he's terrible. And Percy's 'strictly academic'. I'm talking about Fred and George."

Just then, two redheads came barrelling towards the staircase, almost knocking over the foursome. Liz recognised them from the welcome feast, yelling 'WE GOT POTTER! WE GOT POTTER!'.

"Hey, little sister!" one of them grinned, ruffling Ginny's hair. "Off to fly?"

"Fred, gerroff!" Ginny punched him in the arm.

Seamus blinked. "You can tell them apart?"

"Anyway, must dash," the other one, George… probably, smiled a similar smile to his brother's. "Filch isn't too pleased with us right now-"

"Also, we were wondering if you'd seen Errol, we think he's hiding but we can't imagine why," Fred carried on his brother's sentence.

Lorcan, Seamus and Liz blinked, but Ginny rolled her eyes. "The exploding pumpkin pasty he found?"

"Oh yeah, forgot about that, didn't you, Fred?" One redheaded boy said to the other. "Anyway, nice to meet you, Irish boy, tired boy-"

"And famous girl," Fred finished. "Elizabeth, wasn't it?"

"Nice to meet you, Elizabeth."

Suddenly, Liz's leg shot out and both of them were clutching their shins.

"If you want to keep your legs and your dignity," Liz said calmly, "You. Will never. Call me Elizabeth."

The twins grinned simultaneously. "Nice to meet you, fire girl." And they were off.

There was silence as the four kids stood there.

"That," Ginny said finally, "was Fred and George."