A/N: Again, not one of my best chapters.

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Chapter Seven

Surprises At School

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Amelia woke up (after finally falling asleep), to an empty dormitory. She lay there for a few seconds then shot up in bed, the covers flinging off of her. She had slept in! Hastily, she threw on her school robes, tying her hair in a messy ponytail and fumbling with her tie. Taking a peek in the mirror before she grabbed her books and ran down the stairs. Climbing out of the statue, Amelia ran down the corridor - that was, until she remembered that she didn't know how to get to the Great Hall.

"Great," Amelia said grumpily, eyeing a portrait of a knight who was waving his sword frantically at her.

"What puts you fair maiden so mediocre on a gallant day?" the knight demanded, jumping off his horse and giving a clumsy bow.

"Do you know where the Great Hall is?" Amelia asked the knight.

"Alas!" the knight said. "A quest! Come my fair maiden, let Sir Cardigan (A/N: Is that his name? I forgot) lead the way!" and he galloped through the portraits, Amelia following him.

The two ran down the corridors, the knight waving his sword at a pair of ballerinas having biscuits and knocking them down, then giving a very dramatic 'squabble' with a group of trolls. "The Great Hall, fair maiden," Sir Cardigan said, giving another clumsy bow.

"Right," Amelia said. "Thanks . . . oh great . . ." the students began to file out to go to their classes.

"Amelia!" Alex shrieked, sprinting through the crowd.

"Yes?" Amelia asked.

"Here's your schedule," he said, handing her a piece of parchment.

"Er . . . thanks," Amelia muttered as, for some reason Alex began to turn a very deep shape of crimson. "Well . . . bye . . . right . . ." and she walked into the crowd, taking a glance at her schedule.

Amelia headed down to the dungeons - a very gloomy place, indeed - where Hermione (Professor Weasely, she corrected herself) was teaching Potions. Sitting down at a desk in the front row, Amelia took the spare time to fix her hair correctly while she waited. And waited. And waited even more. She began to wonder if she had gotten the wrong dungeon . . . or maybe Dumbledore had said something different . . . Then the bell rang and Amelia went to Charms.

Walking up the staircase to the Charms classroom was quite lonely, everybody chatting animatedly with friends, and there she was - Amelia Potter (not even for a whole official day), horribly confused and befuddled, and well . . . dumb looking. She could imagine at her old school (which she was extremely popular at), laughing at the kid walking down the hallway all alone, who blushed and hugged their books closer to them, looking at the floor. Now she was that kid.

She knew the entire Quidditch team, but they were all in different years. There was Serafina - whom she didn't want to be friends with - and Drake and Melinda, who were in different houses. Amelia sat down in the back of the classroom while Professor Flitwick took roll call.

As roll call was took, Amelia learned the names of her classmates. The person sitting to her left was Pierre Patil, who had shoulder-length hair done in a messy ponytail - she noticed that Serafina kept sneaking glances at him (as did several other girls). To her right was Matilda Clearwater, at a glance she could tell that Matilda was incredibly neat and organized. With her perfect posture, perfectly ironed robes, perfect hair in a perfect braid down her perfect back, and the perfect height - about half a foot taller, making her look like a fourteen year old than an eleven year old.

Professor Flitwick continued with a lecture on Charms, then made Pierre's hat zoom around the room, and afterwards put them in pairs so they could practice Lumos - which would make light appear at the end of their wands - and Nox - which would put out the light.

Just by coincidence, Amelia was paired with Pierre, and therefor was receiving glares from several of her (female) classmates. And to add to her problems - there was no other way to say it - Pierre was very . . . flirty - especially with Serafina. It was getting on Amelia's nerves. Pierre was waving his wand carelessly in the air; mumbling words and shooting looks over his shoulder at Serafina - nearly blasting out Amelia's eye at one point.

Finally, at the end of class, Pierre went straight over to Serafina, and Amelia's eye now felt safe from harm. But people were still looking at her. First, there was Matilda Clearwater, who kept looking at her extremely strangely for some farfetched reason. Then there was Alex and his group of friends who she had never met yet, who kept staring at her as she headed down to Herbology and Alex went to Care of Magical Creatures.

In Herbology, the class didn't do much but make sketches of Gumbleweed, a mess of white weeds with little tentacles waving around in the air. After, the first years had a free period, which most of them spent in the common room lounging with friends. Not that Amelia exactly had any friends in the first year in Ravenclaw, so she went to the library to do her Herbology homework ("The Five Uses of Gumbleweed").

Then, she luckily ran into Melinda Wood, who was also in the library, looking up her History of Magic homework (" Summarize The Ways of the Magical Community, 1200-1205").

"Hey," Melinda muttered, scribbling down a note from the book in front of her.

"Hi," Amelia said back sitting down across from Melinda and reading over her notes.

"How's your day going?" Melinda asked.

"Weird," Amelia muttered, lowering her voice so it was below a whisper as Madam Pince passed by.

"What?" Melinda asked in her normal voice, and therefor received a bickering Madam Pince for the next five minutes.

"Weird," Amelia said again after Madam Pince left.

"Weird what?" Melinda asked.

"My day," Amelia said.

"What about your day?" Melinda asked, scribbling down more of her homework.

"My day was weird," Amelia said.

"Oh," Melinda said in a voice that sounded like she was more immersed in the text in front of her than the person she was talking with. So the two continued in silence, occasional asking each other questions about what words meant, or if a certain sentence made sense.

Then, after the free period the two walked down to lunch together, Matilda Clearwater following them a few yards behind.

Melinda shot a glance at Matilda, who had her nose up in the air. "Who's that?" she asked.

"Matilda Clearwater," Amelia answered.

"She's in your house?" Melinda asked.

"Yeah," Amelia said. "My year."

"First year?" Melinda breathed. "What'd she do, fail for the past three or so years?"

"No," Amelia said. Then she paused for a moment, "I think."

"You think that she would get it after the second year then," Melinda said. "My mum told me that they just do the same curriculum every year. It's not that hard. Same reports, same subjects, same lectures, over, and over, and over . . ."

"Except for Defense Against the Dark Arts," Amelia pointed out.

"Right," Melinda said. "But how do you know . . . what if they have lesson plans that the professors follow, and the lectures and tests all prepared . . . " She continued with the theory all the way down to the Great Hall (which was a long time since they lost their way five times).

Only when they came to the entrance did they split up to go their separate tables, and Amelia was hailed over by Penny and her usual rather large group of friends. Happens to be, they had a new subject to talk about - the new Defense Against the Dark Arts teachers. And it just happened to be Amelia was all the reason to be the center of attention.

"Have you been to Defense Against the Dark Arts yet?" one of Penny's friends asked.

"No . . ." Amelia said, wondering where this was going. "Why do you want to know?"

The group burst into laughter, and Amelia felt the blood rise in her cheeks. She wondered if she was a bit slow to not get what was going on.

"Do you want to know who the professors are?" Alex questioned.

"Okay . . ."

Alex began to speak, "The professors are - Hey!" Penny had pressed her hand against his mouth.

"We'll tell her later," Penny said, shooting glances at the rest of the group. "If she doesn't find out who the professors are by the end of lunch, which is highly unlikely."

Amelia wondered what they were talking about. "Why would it be highly unlikely - "

"Hello!" a certain familiar person said, smothering Amelia in a hug.

'That makes sense' Amelia thought. 'No wonder it was unlikely.'

"You're - suffocating - me - " Amelia said through pained breaths as she was smothered in yet another hug. "Geroff - "

"We're the new Defense Against the Dark Arts - " the second hugger announced.

"Professors," Amelia ended the sentence for them. "I've - noticed - Geroff - me - help - "

"How's school been going?" the first hugger asked.

"It's - only - been - two - days," Amelia gasped. "Since - the - term - started - "

"Ah, yes," the second hugger said. "But you've been here for two weeks."

"Right," Amelia said, and finally pushed her huggers off. "That's like me asking how your two weeks were on a top sec - " then a hand flew over her mouth to stop her from talking.

"Not here," the first hugger said.

"Whatever, Harry," Amelia said after he took his hand off her mouth.

"Professor Potter," Harry corrected her.

"Right . . ." Amelia said. "Where's Hermione?" she asked, turning to Ron.

"Professor Granger now," Ron corrected her again. "And well . . . why she isn't here . . . the matters are appropriate to talk about in front of all you children."

Harry was struggling to keep a straight face. "Of course, Dumbledore didn't trust Ron and I to run the class, so we brought reinforcements," he dragged out the word 'reinforcements' as if they were all extremely slow.

"Oops!" a person with short bubble-gum pink hair said, tripping over the corner of the Gryffindor table. "Sorry!" she said, adjusting the person's robes she had grabbed in her fall. Limping over to the two professors, she extended a hand at Amelia.

"Meet Nymphadora Tonks," Harry said.

"Tonks," Tonks said. "Professor Tonks. Drop the Nymphadora, throw it in the trash." She let go of Amelia's hand and massaged the spot where she had hit the table.

After lunch, Amelia was happy that Harry was a professor, but that happiness didn't last long. In fact, it basically lasted for half of History of Magic, taught by Professor Binns. Notes were being passed around, all about Harry Potter and all the "cool" things he had done.

As more rumors or tales that were told, the more people thought Amelia was somehow a superwitch (even though she was adopted and was only Harry's cousin otherwise). By the end of History of Magic, she was dreading the next class - Defense Against the Dark Arts.

So, Amelia sat in the back of the class next to Drake, an extremely bad feeling in the pit of her stomach. But it happened to be; the class wasn't half-bad. It was fully horrendous. They were learning about vampires, and Harry and Ron did a little reenactment of a vampire slaying, Ron being the vampire and Harry being the hunter. It wasn't much of a lesson to all of them, but more of a joke. And personally to Amelia it was quite embarrassing.

By the day was finished, Amelia didn't exactly know if her life was any better than when she hadn't known about magic.

Back when she was like any other Muggle, she had dozens of friends (especially one wonderful best friend), and even though her parents were a bit annoying, they weren't that embarrassing.

But there was no turning back now.

End of Chapter Seven

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