CHPT. 2

The next morning, which was Monday, Hermione & Harry woke first (or so they thought) & went to the Common Room. There they found an interesting sight. Alexandra & Alexander were sitting on the floor playing chess, except Alexander now had dark blond hair instead of the almost white it had been the day before, & was still wearing his sunglasses. They began laughing, apparently they had not noticed Harry & Hermione. They fell back into silence both with brilliant smiles on their faces. The game seemed very close. Suddenly they began to laugh again, at seemingly nothing. A moment later Alexandra's Queen had Alexander's King in checkmate. They both looked up still smiling. Then Alexander said:

"Great game, Alexandra, although, it would have been better if you hadn't been snooping at my moves." With a teasing grin, still in his French accent.

"Hey! Well, it was good guard practice. You get distracted with my comments, Alexander." Alexandra replied, she, too, seemed to be teasing. "We'd better clean up before someone comes down."

"Wow! Alexandra! You're not up to speed today are you." Alexander said. Alexandra frowned a little. "We seem to have had an audience" pointing at Harry & Hermione who both said "Good Morning" rather quietly & sheepishly. Alexandra's frown disappeared at the sight of them. "Now, who needs guard practice?"

"Quiet, you!" Alexandra said with a playful punch. "Good Morning you two! Sleep well?"

"Yes, thank you, & yourselves?" Hermione answered for both of them. "Oh, we slept magnificently!" Alexandra replied. Alexander seemed subdued like the night before.

"Good, well, since when have you two been up?" Harry asked, rubbing the back of his neck.

Alexandra looked at Alexander, who remained quiet & was still looking downward. She sighed & said; "I don't know, five, maybe six? Not too long." Hermione & Harry stared. It was eight am.

"Well, we just wanted to make sure people here showed signs of being alive before breakfast." Alexandra joked. "Now that we have witnessed life sings, we might as well get cracking right Alex?" She looked at Alexander again but with out waiting for him to respond, she continued "Of course I'm right, I'm always right, now, let's go!"

"Alexandra, you're being rude!" Alexander finally spoke up. He turned to Harry & Hermione. "Care to join us?"

"Wow! You finally showed signs of not being mute!" Alexandra said raising an eyebrow.

"Um, we'd love to but, we're supposed to wait for our friend, Ron." Hermione said sweetly. Alexander nodded & turned for the door while Alexandra said, "Kay, well, see you two later!" Then she, too, went out the portrait.

X X X (later)

As Harry, Hermione & Ron walked in, they were shocked to find Alexandra & Alexander in two chairs at the staff stable directly in front of the headmaster himself & Professor McGonagall. They seemed to be talking quite fast between themselves. Within five seconds of their entrance, Alexander made a stopping signal & quietly got up. Alexandra soon joined him in standing as Dumbledore nodded to them. The two new students made their way to the ends of the Gryffindor table while Dumbledore banished the two chairs. The trio, who were currently shocked at the door way, slowly began to move towards them & sat next to the only teens present.

Ron quickly asked what they were talking about with the Headmaster & Alexander answered just as quickly. "Um, about our course schedules, we received them sometime before we arrived." That quieted Ron immediately, as he didn't even want to think about classes at the moment.

"So, just out of curiosity, are you two brother & sister? I mean, they left out your surnames & other than that you two have names separated by two letters." Harry asked trying to make conversation while he ate. Alexander & Alexandra quickly glanced at each other, though it was difficult to tell through Alexander's dark shades. "Um, er, yeah, we're twins actually."

"Oh, ok. Don't tell me that you're not gonna eat again?!" Ron said, noticing that the twins weren't touching any of the food & that their plates had disappeared.

"We ate before you three arrived, besides, we need to make some space for . . . never mind" Alexander told him as he took out a dark red lollipop & put it in his mouth.

Soon the hall was filled with the rest of Hogwarts' students & mindless chatter. Many Gryffindors came up to the twins asking them questions (that were mainly answered by Lexie as Alex continued sucking on his lollipop) & welcoming them to the school. Another couple of minutes & the hall was filled with the sound of a thousand wings as owls came through the windows. Alex & Alexandra immediately looked up as if expecting something. Alex whispered something to Alexandra who nodded & continued to talk with Hermione about classes. Then, everyone noticed something strange, none of the owls seemed to want to leave the hall. And to everyone's surprise, all the owls began hovering over the twins who smiled & nodded. Malfoy's eagle owl landed in front of Alex, much to Malfoy's displeasure. Alexander seemed to whisper something to it before all the owls left the hall except Pigwidgean, Errol, & Hermione's new owl Erros (Crookshanks is around) who had yet to deliver their letters.

Suddenly two balls of flaming light appeared in front of both Alex & Lexie who were smiling like little kids. When the light subsided everyone was surprised to see two beautiful phoenixes. The one in front of Alexandra was gold, and scarlet with flecks of orange. The one in front of Alex was the more impressive of the two. It had the colors of an Augurey for it was black & green, but it also had blue marks. Plus it was more filled out than any Augurey could ever get. Within seconds a third phoenix joined them, simply gold & scarlet. Harry recognized it as Fawkes, Dumbledore's phoenix. The two strange phoenixes each had a package which Alex & Lexie quickly relieved them of, saying "Thank you, Apollo, thank you Artemis & hello there Fawkes, I hope you enjoyed your journey." & Put the packages in their bags. Apparently unaware of the entire school watching them. Dumbledore stood up & said, "Fawkes, you will have your time with Alexander later, kindly return to my office." Fawkes seemed to nod before flying away.

Meanwhile, Alexander continued talking with Apollo. "Apollo, if you find Echo & Arion, kindly return them to us before returning to our room please. Artemis, kindly assist Apollo in his search if you please?" Both phoenixes nodded before receiving a kiss on the beak from Alexandra & leaving the hall.

X X X FIRST CLASS X X X

The first class of the day was potions with Snape. By the time they got to the corridor outside the classroom, Alex had finished his lollypop & had been asked many questions about Apollo & Artemis. When the got to the corridor, however, there was another interruption as Artemis & Apollo reappeared carrying something that was wriggling madly from their beaks. They deposited the wriggling objects in the arms of Alexander & Lexie before disappearing again. Right as Hermione was about to ask what they were, the dungeon door opened to the potions chamber.

Within seconds the entire class was seated. Ron, Hermione & Harry were seated at the very back of the classroom with Alex & Lexie seated in front of them. Hermione was looking at the twins' backpacks, which were moving quite a bit. The moment Professor Snape came in, he immediately began taking off points from Gryffindors. This was normal routine however, Snape gave the class plenty of notes to take before assigning them three chapters to summarize, due at the end of class. No one dared groan at the evilness of it all.

Five minutes into the assignment, Alex began to look a little restless. He kept shifting positions before finally standing up. Everyone but Alexandra stared. He gently put something on the ground & began waling to Professor Snape's desk. Alex whispered something incoherent & to everyone's surprise Snape nodded! Something that had surely NEVER happened before, Snape, nodding to a GRYFFINDOR. Alex made his way back to his seat & took out another red lollypop from his bag, before popping it into his mouth. Hermione, who was right behind him, stared open-mouthed. The "thing" he had put on the ground earlier was a wolf pup that had begun to sniff around Alexander's area. Judging by the movements of Lexie's left arm, she must have had one in her lap as well. Alexander & Alexandra put down their quills in another ten minutes & continued petting the wolf pups that had found their ways onto the desk. Hermione, Harry, Ron & most of the other students stared at the twins with similar shocked expressions until they realized that they still had another two chapters (or in Hermione's case, one) to finish.

X X X HALL TALK X X X

As soon as class was over, Alex & Lexie where confronted by Hermione about finishing the assignment so quickly. Receiving only the simple replies of having read & summarized all their schoolbooks during break, surprising everyone. Although, Harry & Ron were looking at Hermione's reaction. Considering that they were expecting a more shocked expression, they were surprised to find an amused look along with a nod of approval.

The next class of the day was Care of Magical Creatures. So the famous trio led the mysterious duo to the space next to Hagrid's hut reserved for class. What seemed extremely odd to the ever-observant Hermione, was that, even though the sky was clouded (though not horribly so) and it was a fairly warm day, Alex had pulled up the hood of his cloak over his head. Hermione then turned to watch Lexie, who seemed to be keeping an eye on Harry. Except, she was holding her wriggling pup in her harms as Alexander's walked at his ankles. Hermione & Harry both seemed a little confused by this but Harry was much too busy trying to come up with a conversation to have with Alexandra.

Care of Magical Creatures went by without many incidents. Hagrid had somehow managed to bring in a Demiguise & gotten it to show itself. Harry thought it looked a bit like Dudley but the gorilla-ish appearance of the Demiguise seemed gentler than Dudley & much, much, more intelligent (A/N: The Demiguise does exist in the J.K. Rowling books, its in the smaller book Magical Creatures & Where To Find Them I read it! Lol sorry, back to the story). Alex spent his time covered by his hood & sunglasses sucking on yet another dark red lollypop. This lesson seemed to hold his attention quite well as well as everyone else's. The only odd part was at the end of the lesson when Hagrid called to Alexander saying, "Alex c'me 'ere later t'night, got sommat in here you might like ter see" pointing into the dark, morbid trees of the Forbidden Forest.

What was truly odd was Alexander's reaction to this horrid request. His whole face seemed to light up as he donned a huge smile & vigorously nodded his head as if nothing could be better than a trip into the forest.

The rest of the day went by without anything remotely odd or out of place happening, or at least nothing that could match that morning's occurrences. Alex kept his sunglasses on & his hood up all day, which Lexie seemed not to care about or find odd, unlike Hermione, Harry & Ron (well maybe not Ron, seeing as he isn't the brightest of fellows ;-D). Alex kept eating his lollypops all day long as well. That night they all stayed up doing their homework until somewhere around 10:00, except Ron who got tired & bored doing homework so he went to sleep. The other four left, talked for another half-hour after his departure. Or rather Harry, Hermione, & Lexie talked. Alex only nodded & rarely said a word except a goodnight when they all went to bed.

A/N: K Im not gonna keep putting the disclaimers up, I mean, u should no by now that Im not JK Rowling so deal Anyways thanx to:

Yama Strife - THANX 4 ur review, Im glad u enjoyed it, but u wre right, I did rush it

Aislin-Black - I read ur story & really enjoyed it, thanx , Im glad u enjoyed it.