Chapter 10: An Interesting First Day

Ginny was woken the next morning by the sounds of her roommates getting dressed. She had been up late writing to Tom and felt like she needed a few more hours of sleep.

"Someone should wake Ginny up." Cat was saying. "She'll miss breakfast if she doesn't get up soon."

Amy stuck her head through the velvet curtains that hung around Ginny's bed. "You awake yet Ginny?"

Ginny groaned and opened an eye to look at Amy. "Yeah, I'm awake…I'm just tired."

Amy laughed and pulled Ginny out of bed. "We're all tired, but we want to see what they'll serve at breakfast. I'm soooo hungry!"

Cat threw some clothes in Ginny's direction. "Hurry and get dressed, we can all go together."

The next couple minutes were spent dressing, brushing her hair and wondering how her roommates could be so energetic so early in the morning. Before she even had time to tie her shoes she was being pulled out of the dorm and through the common room. Amy had a firm grip on her arm and was dragging her along. Cat was pulling Julia in the same way, and Noelle was walking behind them, looking like she wanted to laugh.

'Merlin, Cat and Amy sure are alike! It's like they've known each other for years. Julia looks like she's half asleep. And like she wants to be anywhere but here. She must be really shy.'

Just as they reached the Great Hall, Ginny tripped over her untied shoelaces and fell on Amy, who somehow managed to pull Julia and Cat down with her. They landed in a big heap just inside the Hall. Everyone in the Hall turned to look at them and almost everyone was laughing.

'What a great way to start the day!' Ginny thought, making her way out from underneath her laughing roommates. 'I wish I was back in bed.' Without looking at anyone, she made her way to the Gryffindor table and sat down next to Fred. He didn't seem to notice she was there. He and George were talking about some plan they had for dying Lockhart's teeth a dark shade of yellow. They were oblivious to everyone around them as they debated whether it would be better to put the potion in his drink or to put it into some candy that a "fan" had sent.

Her roommates, who had followed her to the table, sat down around her and started helping themselves to the different breakfast foods that were around them. Soon they were joined by Ron and his friends, Harry being one of them.

"Where were you guys yesterday?" Ginny called down the table to them. Ron turned red and absently buttered some toast.

"We, uh, ran into some trouble with the barrier and wound up fly here in Dad's car," he said.

"You flew?" Ginny had definitely not thought that was something that could have happened. "You guys are going to be in a lot of trouble!"

Harry laughed. "We already are. We both have detentions for tonight and letters have been sent to our families. Not like mine will care much. They'll just wish that we'd crashed or that the tree had hurt us more."

Ginny didn't even want to know what Harry meant by the tree hurting them more. "Ron, you're going to be in so much trouble! Mum is still mad that you drove the car to Harry's. Now she'll probably kill you!"

Ron smiled at her. "Don't worry Gin. She won't be too mad, and besides, we weren't expelled or anything. I won't be seeing her for another nine months, and she can't really do anything while I'm away at school."

Just then, the owls started swooping into the Hall with the student's mail. While Ron and Harry were laughing over their little adventure, and Hermione looked like she wanted nothing more than to give them a good lecture, an owl flew down and landed in front of Ron. In held a bright red envelope in it's beak. The whole table fell silent as Ron picked it up.

'Wow, Ron's gotten a howler! Someone must be really mad at him. I bet it's from mum.'

Ron's friends were trying to talk him into opening it. After a minute, he broke the seal. The envelope flew out of his hands and hovered in front of him. It reshaped itself into what looked like a mouth and loud shouts suddenly filled the Great Hall.

'Yep, that's mum's voice alright!'

Ginny listened as her mother yelled at Ron for taking the car and told him that because he had been so stupid their father was facing an inquiry at work. The howler yelled and yelled for what seemed like an eternity and Ron sank further and further into his seat. Everyone in the hall was looking at him.

'Yikes, he must be really embarrassed. Goodness knows I would be.'

Ginny had barely thought about Ron's embarrassment when the howler all of a sudden turned in her direction. Her mother's voice continued on in a loud voice, but she didn't sound angry anymore.

"And Ginny, dear," it was saying, "congratulations on getting into Gryffindor. We're so proud of you."

Her face flushed to the same shade as her hair and hiding underneath table seemed like a very good idea. She didn't notice if the howler said anything else, or if people were laughing at her. All she wanted to do was go back to her room and talk to Tom.

She stood up and walked out of the Great Hall as elegantly as possible. Her head was held high and looked straight ahead, but once the doors closed behind her, Ginny ran towards the Gryffindor tower. But she didn't get very far. As she was turning a corner, she bumped into someone and fell for the second time in an hour.

"Oh, hey Ginny!"

Toire and Alex bent down and helped her up.

"How was your night?"

"Do you like your roommates?"

Ginny laughed and brushed off her robes. "I didn't get much sleep, but I do like my roommates. Actually," she said, looking at Alex, "I'm rooming with your sister."

"That's cool," he said. "Do you like her?"

Ginny nodded. "She told us all a funny story about how your mother named you all after famous rulers."

Alex laughed.

'What a nice laugh he has. It's sort of like Harry's laugh'

"Yeah, that's Cat's favourite story. She's always looking for an excuse to tell people about it."

"So," Ginny said, "How do you guys like your roommates?"

"Well enough, I suppose," Alex said. "I haven't really talked to any of them yet. We all went to bed right after we got there."

"Same here," Toire said. "I did make one friend though. Her name's Michelle Brave. She's really nice. Our mum's were friends when they came here, but I'd never met her before."

"We were thinking that we'd all meet out by the lake after dinner and hang out. You want to come?"

Ginny smiled. "Yeah, I'd love to!"

"Cool," Toire said. "We're going to have breakfast. Have you already eaten?"

"Uh, yeah. I'll see you guys after dinner."

Alex and Toire walked in the direction of the Great Hall and Ginny continued on her way to the dorm. Talking to her friends had cheered her up and made her forget her embarrassment, but she still felt like she needed to talk to Tom.

~~~

'I'm making friends already Tom! After dinner Toire, and Alex and I are going to hang out by the lake,' she wrote. 'Toire said she was going to bring one or two of her roommates too. It's so nice to have friends.'

'Am I not one of your friends Ginny? I would do more for you than any of them would.'

'Ha ha. Are you jealous Tom? You know you're my best friend. No one's as good a friend to me as you are. There's no one like you.'

'Well, I suppose you are right about that.'

'There's nothing for you to worry about. We'll be friends forever Tom.'

'Forever?'

'Yes Tom, forever. We're best friends. Oh, but I have to go meet Toire and Alex now. I'll tell you all about it later!'

Ginny closed the diary and ran out of her room. She had been writing to Tom nearly all afternoon and had missed lunch. It was a good thing that they didn't have classes that day or she might have missed those too. When she was talking to Tom is was almost like she had no comprehension of how much time was passing.

When she reached the Great Hall, Toire and Alex weren't there. In fact, most of the students had already finished eating and were just talking to their friends. Without sitting down, Ginny took a couple apple turnovers from a dish on the Gryffindor table and left to go to the lake.

Alex, Toire and a couple people she didn't recognize were sitting under a tree by the lake. They were laughing and joking about something.

"Hi guys! I'm sorry I'm late." Ginny said, sitting down next to Alex.

"Where were you?" Toire asked. "We didn't see you in the Great Hall at dinner and when Alex's sister came by a couple minutes ago she said she hadn't seen you all afternoon."

"Oh, I was in my room writing to, I mean, writing in my diary." Ginny took a bite out of one of her turnovers.

"That's cool," Alex said. "Anyway, this is Michelle Brave and Affie, my brother. Michelle's in Ravenclaw with Toire, and Affie's in Hufflepuff. He's a beater on our Quidditch team."

Ginny smiled at them. Michelle had long, dark brown hair and brown eyes and wore blue rimmed glasses that gave her a studious look. She was about the same height as Ginny. Affie was tall and blond like his brother. They looked so alike they could have been mistaken for being twins.

"I'm Ginny Weasley. I'm in Gryffindor."

"Cat told us about you at dinner," Affie said. "She said you were nice, and had a bunch of brothers here."

Ginny smiled. 'It always comes back to them doesn't it?' "Yeah, I have four brothers here right now, and two who've graduated."

"Do you like having so many brothers?" Michelle asked her.

"Well, it's not much fun sometimes, but they're all really nice, so I guess it isn't too bad."

"I know your brother Ron." Affie told her. "I had Charms with him last year. He had his friend Harry are both pretty cool."

"Yeah, I suppose they are." Ginny took another bite of her turnover. "So, uh, what were you guys talking about before I got here?"

Toire laughed. "Affie was telling us about Professor Snape. Apparently he only washes his hair, like, once a month!"

"And he has really bad breath!"

The group laughed and talked about various professors. Affie knew the most about them, as he was a second year and had been taught by them. Before long the sun was starting to set and they began to think about going back to the castle. None of them wanted to leave though.

"--So anyway, Flitwick was teaching us how to make things levitate, and this guy Peter didn't aim properly, and the next thing we knew, Flitwick was floating above his desk and everyone was laughing so hard we couldn't get him down! Someone finally ran for McGonagall, but he must have been floating there for a good ten minutes at least. Needless to say, Flitwick kept far away from Pete's wand after that!"

Ginny laughed along with everyone else, but stopped as something strange echoed through her head.

'Ginny…Ginny…'

No one else seemed to have heard anything.

'Ginny…I need you to come here…'

A voice was calling her. Who was it? Was -- Tom! Tom wanted her!

"I, uh, I'll see you guys later. I have to go, um…I have to go find my…brother." Ginny stood up and ran towards the castle, leaving her friends staring at her as she ran away.

Something weird was going on and Ginny had to know what it was. Tom had never called to her before. Something was definitely going on. Ginny didn't stop running until she was in the Gryffindor common room. She had to get to Tom.

'Ginny…You have to do something for me…'