Disclaimer: You know the drill. I don't own anything you recognize from the original HP series.

Chapter 5: Spells and Mishaps

Elle let out a sigh of exhaustion as she fell backwards onto her new bed. She liked the softness of it and thought about how good she should be able to sleep on account of all the exercise she had just gotten. After a great meal in what she considered to be the biggest hall she had ever seen, and after the tour that Harry, Hermione and Ron had just given her she thought that she deserved a good night's sleep. She couldn't believe how big the school was or how many students it contained! She doubted that she would remember half of the people that she had been introduced to, let alone where all of her classes were. At least she knew the other girls who shared her dorm room.

She turned her head to look towards a couple beds over where her other two room mates were sitting and giggling about something. Parvati and Lavender. She then wondered if the occurrence of giggles was something that she would have to put up with on a regular basis.

She let a tired smile cross her face as she snuggled her face into her pillow. Tomorrow would be her first day of classes and she was determined to have things go well. Her smile then faded as she thought about how different things would be here and how much she missed her family. She wondered how she would get home. Perhaps that would be something that would have to be discussed with Dumbledore. But that would have to be at a later time, for right now, all she wanted to do was sleep. Her eyes slowly flickered shut as she let herself slowly drift off into slumber. The last thought in her mind was how cool it was going to be to learn magic.

**********

"My lord, I bring news from the school," Draco stood in a darkened room. He looked across it and as his eyes got used to the dim lighting, he could see the silhouette of the back of a chair.

There came no answer and so Draco took this as his cue to speak. "The girl of prophecy has shown up. Dumbledore has taken her in. He has the professors, as well as the mudblood and myself catching her up in the magic ways as she is only a muggle and knows no magic."

"So, the prophecy comes true at last," a raspy voice came from the direction of the chair. "The muggle girl you speak of is the one who is supposed to destroy me. Yet you say she has no magical training. There is no way she could posses the power to rid of me…" the voice trailed off.

"My lord, I am certain no muggle poses you a threat. Dumbledore is wrong. He-" Draco was cut off.

"I did not give you permission to speak servant!" the voice bellowed through the darkness of the room.

"My apologies, my lord," Draco said with slight fear evident in his voice.

"Dumbledore has never been wrong about something of legend before. He knows something we don't. I want you to find out what that is. Get close to the girl…get as close as you want. Find out all you can about her."

Draco let a dark smile slip upon his face. He knew exactly what his master was talking about.

"I am counting on you my faithful death eater. Do not fail me."

"Yes master. I will do as you say…" Draco allowed the smile to linger on his face a moment longer before turning on his heel and leaving his master to bask in the shadows.

**********

"Elle! It's time to get up!"

Elle rolled over and forced her eyes to open. Above her stood Hermione who had shaken her awake. "Do I have to?" She stuffed her face back into her pillow.

"Yes! Now up!" Elle thought that Hermione sounded awfully cheerful for it being so early in the morning.

"Okay, okay. I'm up." Elle rolled out of bed and got to her feet.

Hermione pushed her over to her dresser and took out her uniform for her.

Elle put on the uniform and raised her hands in defeat. It was another ruddy skirt. But she had to laugh at her own reflection. She just couldn't win!

After Hermione had packed up the books that she would be needing for the day, she took Elle by the arm and lead her down to the great hall for breakfast.

**********

Elle walked along with Hermione, Ron, and Harry down into the dungeons and into what was the Potions room. There were only a few spots left and Harry and Ron took a seat next to each other, while Hermione took a seat beside Seamus leaving Elle to take the seat next to Neville.

Neville offered Elle a shy smile when she sat down next to him which she returned.

Just then the door flew open and in walked Snape, his cloak billowing out behind him. He strode up to the front of the room and began to introduce the potion that they would be brewing in class.

Elle tried her best to follow what he was saying but was finding it extremely hard. And after the lecture part of the class, Elle didn't know what else to do but to follow the lead of everyone else. She slowly got out her cauldron and the ingredients that they needed and watched Neville as to how he prepared everything. She tried her best to copy his every move and soon found herself feeling a little more at ease. It almost felt as if she was following a recipe in some sort of oriental cookbook or something.

After she thought that she had all the ingredients in the potion that was needed, she slowly picked up the stirring spoon and put it into the pot with a proud smile on her face. "Well, that wasn't nearly as hard as I thought it would be," she said out loud to Neville who all of a sudden had a look of slight fear cross his face as he looked over towards her pot.

"Uh, I don't think-" he started to say but what cut off by a sudden explosion from her pot.

Everyone turned to look at Elle and as soon as the smoke cleared, her sooty face came into view.

Elle coughed as she waved the thin remaining wall of smoke away and looked over at Neville. "What was that you were saying, Neville?" she said with a very uncertain voice.

Neville looked at Elle and she could see that half of his face and robes were covered with soot as well. "Well, I was just going to tell you that you forgot to add your frog's eyes," he said with sympathetic face as he pointed at the jar next to her.

"Right," she nodded her head in embarrassment, "I'll have to remember that for next time."

By now the whole class was laughing, well at least all the Slytherins were and she couldn't help but notice that the Gryffindors were having trouble holding their own laughter back as well.

Elle looked up to see professor Snape standing in front of them with his arms folded across his chest and a very stern look on his face.

"I didn't think anyone was worse than Longbottom. But you, Carter, have proved me wrong," Snape's voice was cold and loathing. He looked down at the young girl and saw the evident fear that was in her eyes.

"I - I'm sorry professor," Elle's voice came quiet as she looked down at her hands not being able to stand his glare on her any longer. "I can promise you that it won't happen again."

"It better not!" came Snape's crude reply but after seeing Elle cringe at the sound of his voice he added in a more controlled tone, "I will not take any points away from your house this time Ms. Carter. But I can assure you that if your carelessness keeps up then your housemates will have no one else to blame but you for their lack of points. Understood?"

"Y-yes sir," came her stuttered reply.

"Good. Now, I expect this to be cleaned up before you leave for the day. The rest of you are dismissed." With that, Snape walked up to his desk, gathered some papers and left the room with the students.

With the room nearly empty now, Elle noticed for the first time that Neville had already started to clean up her mess for her.

"Oh, Neville, you don't have to do this," Elle said with an embarrassed face as she started to gather up shattered pieces of glass.

"It's fine, really," he replied and offered her a kind smile. "Besides, I know how you feel. It's usually me blowing things up in this class. I can't tell you the relief it was to have someone else do it for a change."

Elle laughed at what he said.

"Elle?" came a voice from behind her.

She turned around to face Hermione, Ron, and Harry.

"Would you like us to wait for you?" asked Hermione.

"No, that's okay you guys. You go ahead," Elle replied and turned back around to see that Neville was using his wand to clean up a lot of the mess.

"We'll only be a minute," said Neville as he lifted the glass particles into the air using a spell to put them into the trash.

"We'll tell McGonagall that you'll be right there then," Harry gave both Neville and Elle a smile before leading Ron and Hermione out of the room.

Elle turned back to Neville to find that he was just finishing up cleaning the soot off the desk. Only, she noticed, that he wasn't actually doing anything. "How are you doing that?" she asked.

"It's magic," he replied looking at her curiously.

"Oh, yeah, that's right. Magic," she said unsurely because she had actually forgotten that she was in a new world where magic could do anything. "Well, thanks for helping me clean," she said with a smile.

Neville nodded in reply as he gathered his books and looked on at her in amazement. How could she have not known about a simple cleaning spell?