( Wow, my first Harry Potter fanfic. So you know, Mandy and Sandra are fifteen, Taria and Marina are sixteen, Lisa and Corinne are seventeen, and James is eighteen. This chapter is really short, but it's mostly just to preempt the better stuff, such as the girls landing in Draco Malfoy's bedroom.)

"Hi guys," chirped Mandy DuMont, pushing back a lock of her brown-blonde braided hair. She looked at her friends, all of whom looked a little down for some reason.. she tilted her head to one side and tried to smile cheerfully at them.

"What's wrong?" She queried, sitting down on Taria Sanchez's bed. Taria had a room in the basement, so they all hung out there. Thus, there were plenty of chairs and pillows around, but usually Mandy, Lisa Francis, and Sandra sat on the bed, while Corinne Aogiri sat in the desk chair and Taria, James Matheson, and Marina Dart sat on the futon.

"Guess," Corinne growled, glancing at Sandra. Corinne was the big, tough leader of the group, with blood-red hair, a perfect figure and a temper that made everyone in Christmas Valley High know to never mess with her. She was also one quarter Japanese, which gave her an exotic look. She wore a black jumpsuit with pants and a camisole-styled shirt that went far lower than the dress code allowed, but no one said anything because it was.. well, Cori.

"Did Allen break up with you, Sandi?" Mandy frowned. Sandra, a slender, tall, brunette fifteen year old fashion plate, had a new boyfriend every week, but she had particularly liked Allen.

Sandra nodded dejectedly, hugging her knees to her chest. "I can't believe it. He was so nice, too!"

"Did he say why?" James asked. James was a girl. *Definitely* a girl, as she had gold-blonde hair, a stunning smile, and bright blue eyes. She was the perfect one of the seven friends, but she had brains, too. She was the oldest and had the same steady boyfriend since her freshman year.

"He said.." Sandi heaved a dramatic sigh, "He said that he wanted to just be friends because he's graduating, and, well.."

"A senior going out with a freshman looks really odd," Lisa supplied. A tall, athletic Black girl with hazel eyes and long black hair, she was the only one who would be so blunt and honest.

"Gonna kick his ass, Cori?" James asked, looking back at the redhead.

"No!" Sandi yelped, "If he does, he'll never come back to me!"

".. He asked Faustine Parrish out today," Taria said, shaking her head, black curls bouncing. Taria was a pretty, shy Hispanic girl who loved to draw.

"He did?!" Sandra shrieked, her face falling.

"Yeah," Lisa said thoughtfully, "I heard he liked her."

"She's a freak!"

"She is not, Sandi," Marina snapped, looking up from her book, "You just don't like her because you claimed you wore those black drawstring skater pants first, when she's been wearing them all year."

"That's not true!"

"Knock it off," Corinne gave them all a cool look. Marina stared back but Sandra looked down at her hands, embarassed. Everyone knew that Sandi looked up to Corinne, and that Marina got annoyed by Sandi often. Corinne continued.

"It doesn't matter, anyway. Faustine can't stand him."

"I told you she's a freak!" Sandi declared, shaking her head.

"She's a freak because she doesn't like your ex-boyfriend, who wasn't that cute anyway?" Marina asked, raising one brow. Marina had wavy brown hair with blondish hilites, doe-like brown eyes, and was rather tall, the second-tallest next to Corinne.

"He is so cute.. He looks like Elijah Wood!"

"That scrawny guy!" Lisa objected, "He's not cute in the slightest!"

This spurred a debate about Elijah Wood's looks, and eventually four of the seven girls had decided he was indeed good-looking, if short, and whether or not Sandra's ex resembled him (six of the seven said he didn't). After a half hour or two, Marina looked up at them curiously.

"Taria, you have a trap door under your bed."

"I do?" Taria knelt to peer under her bed. "Hey, I've never seen that before!" she exclaimed.

Corinne pushed the bed aside, since it was on wheels, and looked at the trap door oddly, as if she'd never seen one before. In fact, she was thinking about how the door looked a little strange to her.

"I really had no idea that was there," Taria said slowly, frowning. She'd lived in this house for three years; when they moved in, wouldn't she have seen it? This seemed very curious indeed to all seven young ladies, but they saw no reason to say anything, since it was obvious.

"Let's try and open it!" Sandra squealed, forgetting her boyfriend-lacking misery in lieu of going down to the hidden compartment beneath the floorboards of Taria's bedroom.

Marina just rolled her eyes.

Corinne walked over to the trap door and grabbed the ancient-looking handle, testing to see how firmly in place the door ways. It moved only slightly.

"Stand back in case I go flying," Corinne instructed, clutching the handle with all her formidable strength (Corinne was the strongest girl at their school and definitely the most feared person in Christmas Valley, Ohio).

She yanked and the door opened with a sudden, terrible creak; the seven girls gathered around the open, black space with wide eyes. It must have looked like quite an odd sight for any person who might have been down there.. if something were down there.

But something was.

"What is it?" The girls asked each other, "Do you see anything?"

Abruptly, as if out of nowhere, something came hurtling out of the trap door space and flew level with their faces, hovering there for a moment. A little golden ball with wings on it. They stared at it in astonishment, completely silent and completely awestruck. They knew Taria's house was weird, but they didn't know it was that weird.

Then the innocent-looking little golden ball exploded.

And the girls knew darkness.