Chapter Two - And You Started Over
You fell down of course
And then you got up of course
And you started over
Forgot my name of course
Then you started to remember
The Same Boy You've Always Known
by The White Stripes
*
As was customary the year at Hogwarts began with the sorting of new students into one of the four houses: Gryffindor, Hufflepuff, Ravenclaw or Slytherin. After all the students had been sorted Dumbledore hushed everyone and said, "This year we have another new student at our school. Her family moved here from France this year, and she has been attending Beauxbatons for the last six years. She has already been sorted as she didn't want to do it with all the first years. She was put into Gryffindor and I'm sure all the seventh year Gryffindors will make her feel most welcome. Now, allow me to introduce you all to our new student, Gwendolyn Fleetwood."
Draco's head shot up at the name Dumbledore had just announced. Surely he was mistaken but, no. There was his Gwendolyn standing next to Dumbledore, wearing Hogwarts robes, in Gryffindor colours no less. He tried to make eye contact with her but her eyes were fixed on something else. He followed her gaze to see what had her so intrigued and was horrified to see who she was looking at so intensely. Harry Potter!
Gwendolyn could feel Draco's gaze on her. She didn't know exactly where he was but after knowing someone your whole life you get to know the feeling when they look at you. She was trying to think of a way to, as she liked to say, "Piss him off royally." Then her gaze fell upon a certain seventh year Gryffindor. She knew instantly who he was. How could she not? Draco had complained and griped about him for the past six summers straight! He had, of course, failed to mention just how good looking he was…and what would get underneath Draco's skin more than if she started to fancy Harry Potter? She couldn't think of anything so she decided she was definitely going to get to know Harry, hopefully more than a friend would.
Harry's breath caught in his throat when he saw the girl that was to become his class mate. She was positively beautiful! Her eyes were a bright blue-violet, her crimson hair hung in curls that framed her round face greatly contrasting the lily-white of her skin. Her school uniform hugged her curvaceous body and attracted most of Harry's attention.
Dumbledore had finished talking and Gwendolyn was allowed to take her seat at the Gryffindor table. She walked straight to where Harry was seated and asked quietly, "Is it ok if I sit next to you?"
Harry nodded, lost for words and Gwendolyn could feel Draco's stare still fixed on her, only now, she was sure it had turned from luke-warm to deathly cold.
Draco didn't once look away from Gwendolyn for the whole feast. He was so confused. He was pissed off at Potter for talking to his Gwendolyn, but more pissed off at himself for doing what he had done. He was hurt that Gwendolyn refused to give him any kind of recognition but admitted that he deserved it. Then there was the fact that she could go there, sit down and become instant friends with them but Potter had outright refused the friendship he had offered all those years ago. Although, he did notice, Granger looked a little disgruntled about the new arrangement of the Gryffindor table. But Pothead, Weasel and just about everyone else seemed to be doing everything they could to make Gwendolyn fit in.
And indeed they were; Gwendolyn had never felt so much at home in such a small amount of time. For the first twenty minutes most of the girls were a little stand-offish, as they were obviously jealous of the boys' collective attention towards her but they warmed up to her soon enough. Gwendolyn made a point, though of especially talking to Harry. She knew how much he liked Quidditch, as Draco had told her, and that he was going to be captain of the team so she engaged him in a conversation about his favourite sport. He was quite surprised at how much she knew about Quidditch but after listening to Draco go on about it she wasn't at all surprised at her knowledge.
Halfway through the dinner Harry spotted Professor Snape heading in the direction of the Gryffindor table and pointed this out to Ron and Hermione. "Hey, look. Snape's coming over here."
"What, is he going to take points off of Gryffindor for not eating our soup right?" Ron said, only half joking.
Harry had begun to tell Gwendolyn about Snape but she was standing up and walking - no running - towards him.
"Uncle Severus!" She cried, gaining the attention of a lot of the staff and students. Gwendolyn threw her arms about the Potions teacher's neck who was actually smiling!
Ron and Harry were rather dismayed at their new friend's display of affection towards their most loathed Potions Master and so they were relieved when, after chatting for a few minutes, he walked back to the Staff table.
"Snape is your uncle?" Ron asked incredulously. Harry nudged Ron and told him not to be so rude but Gwendolyn did not seem to mind.
"He's not my uncle by blood. He's just a really good friend of the family. I suppose you don't like him though?" Gwendolyn looked at the faces of her fellow Gryffindors, and though she had only known them for about half an hour she could tell that they did not like her "Uncle Severus" at all.
"Your family doesn't have any other friends of that nature that you'd like to warn us about now, do they?" Harry asked, cautiously.
"Uh…well if by 'that nature' you mean people that not a whole heap of people seem to like then we tend to keep company of 'that nature' quite a lot. Actually, one of my father's oldest and closest friends is…Lucius Malfoy." Gwendolyn bit her lip. She knew that wouldn't go down well and she desperately wanted to be their friend. Although Lucius Malfoy had, to everyone's surprise, renounced Voldemort and in a way helped to bring about his defeat, there were still not many who trusted Lucius. In fact Lucius was still against Muggles and "Mudbloods" but was wise to not let these views into the open as much as he used to.
The Gryffindors gasped and Gwendolyn fiddled with her napkin nervously and continued, "But my father was never into anything bad. He was a right bastard when he was at school mind you but when he married my mum he straightened himself out but Lucius still stayed friends with him even though they were in with er different crowds."
Harry believed Gwendolyn. He didn't know why but she seemed a trustworthy person. That and she was extremely 'hot'.
Gwendolyn had managed to keep Draco mostly off of her mind and by the time the Feast had ended she wasn't thinking about him at all. She was laughing with Harry and his friends like she had known them for years and not just an hour or so. But there was one of Harry's friends who she could tell certainly did not like her, or was at least wary of her: Hermione. All the other girls had been extremely friendly to her and told her how much they loved her hair, especially Ginny Weasley (Gwendolyn was sure that they would be great friends) but Hermione had sat their sulking and unnoticed. Gwendolyn liked all the other girls, and adored Ginny, but she really wanted to be friends with Hermione. Draco had told her how much of a "know-it-all" she was, which just meant she was very intelligent and he didn't want to admit it, and Gwendolyn very much wanted someone who could match her intellectually, not just talk about fashion and boys.
Everyone began to make their way out of the Great Hall and Hermione rushed ahead of all the other Gryffindors. This girl could in just one night gain more of that kind of attention than she had managed to in the past six years. What did this Gwendolyn have that Hermione didn't? Hermione laughed. She knew what Gwendolyn had that she didn't a perfect, curvaceous figure, perfect bouncy hair, perfect white teeth, perfect violet eyes and perfect bloody skin! Hermione heard someone call her name and immediately recognised Gwendolyn's voice, "Perfect voice," she reminded herself. She thought of ignoring her but decided not to be rude and she turned around.
"Hermione," Gwendolyn said, as she reached Hermione. "I was wondering if we could walk together."
"Ok," Hermione answered, clearly not enthused.
"I mean, we didn't really get to talk much at dinner. Mind if I see your timetable? You can look at mine if you want."
Gwendolyn handed Hermione the piece of parchment that had her timetable on it and took the one Hermione had offered to her.
"Hey, look. We're in all the same classes!" Gwendolyn said, grinning.
Hermione mumbled something that sounded like "Yeah, great."
They reached Gryffindor Tower and Hermione showed Gwendolyn to the seventh year girls' dormitory. Gwendolyn's bed was right next to Hermione's.
Gwendolyn opened her trunk and got out her textbooks, plus some others she thought were interesting.
Hermione noticed that one of them was 'Hogwarts: A History' and said, "Oh are you reading that?"
"Oh, I read it ages ago, even though I wasn't going to be coming here but I just like to keep it with me in case I've forgotten something. Why?"
"Oh, it's just that not many people here seem to have read it." 'Maybe she isn't so bad after all,' Hermione thought.
"Do you want to go over our textbooks together? I've already read most of them but I always say you can't read a textbook enough," Gwendolyn motioned for Hermione to sit next to her on the bed.
"You know I think I was wrong about you, Gwendolyn," Hermione said sitting down.
"Call me Gwen…and how so?" Gwendolyn reached for her History of Magic textbook.
"I thought you'd be like all the other girls, Gwen; only interested in boys and fashion. I didn't expect you to be so much like…me."
Gwen smiled. "Hermione, I think we're going to be great friends."
Hermione and Gwen spent the rest of the night reading over their textbooks, sometimes laughing, sometimes pointing out interesting facts to each other and only went to bed when the other Gryffindor girls told them to go to sleep.
When Gwen had turned out the light and got beneath her covers she smiled. She had made great new friends in the Gryffindors, four in particular: Harry, Ron, Hermione and Ginny and she had completely forgotten how much she had been hurt by Draco. Then, she started to remember.
Disclaimer: There's a lot more things in this chapter that I don't own and that's everything that belongs to JK Rowling. But Gwen still belongs to me. Oh, and I'm sure there are loads of Fleetwoods, but I got her name from the band Fleetwood Mac. Again, The White Stripes belong to themselves as does their song. The idea of Snape knowing Gwen belongs to my friend Lysha but I thought of her calling him 'Uncle Severus'.