Chapter 6

Hermione Granger was not a weak woman, but when it came to the time for her children to properly enter the ranks of first-years, she was a burbling mess.

"It's not like you'll never see us, mama." Adrienne sighed to her blubbering mother.

"We'll come and visit all the time! And you'll get to teach us. If we lived here with you, people'd get suspicious." Lianna gently spoke to her mother, who was now blowing her nose quite noisily.

"I know," their mother somehow managed to sob out, "it's just so hard to believe that my babies are growing up…" and then she was a mess again.

"And it's only ten o'clock," Ri commented.

~*~

Seven o'clock rolled around quite leisurely, allowing plenty of time for the girls to console their mother, pack their bags and stroll into the entrance hall, along with several meals in between. They could hear when the other students arrived, the echoes finding the girls long before the bodies came into sight.

"Here we go, Li," Adrienne mumbled, apprehensive of the noisy student body approaching. Hagrid walked into view, followed by a cloud of noisy children. Professor Varimont stepped through the doors, and their combined presence quieted the children.

"Welcome to Hogwarts. This will be a second home for you, until you have finished your schooling. Within this large family, there are four smaller families. Each has its own heroes, and its own villains. These are Hufflepuff, Ravenclaw, Gryffindor and Slytherin. You will live with this smaller family, and they will take care of you, just as you take care of them. Good things you do will earn you House Points, whereas things you do wrong will lose you House Points. The house with the most points at the end of the year will win the House Cup. I will shortly lead you into the Great Hall to be sorted. Don't worry," Varimont smiled slyly, "it's relatively painless." Li and Ri smothered their giggles, seeing the terrified faces of their surrounding classmates.

"Who are you?" a small voice asked from behind them, and the girls spun around to face the speaker.

He was a small, mousy-haired boy, with huge grey eyes. "I didn't see you on the train," he explained, although his gaze was still troubling.

Lianna piped up, smiling beatifically, "that's because we weren't on the train. We live here. Our mother is a teacher."

He frowned over this for a moment, allowing another boy to interrupt. "So you're the ones who live here. My brother told me about you- said that you know the corridors better than anyone." This speaker was tallish, with very red hair and lots of freckles.

"Oh, yes. Well, we've lived here since we were five, so we'd better know the corridors well! The teachers don't even know the corridors as well- if only because they teach all the time. We had six years of free time to explore." Adrienne replied. The attention of the whole group had somehow come upon the twins, and while they were speaking, nobody else spoke.

"I'm Graham Weasley, by the way," the redhead said.

"And I'm Roger Creevy," the mousy-haired boy interrupted.

Suddenly the girls were overwhelmed by introductions, names flying through the air thick and fast. There was only one sniff of disdain- a small blonde girl at the back of the crowd. Her hair was tightly curled, although whether this originated from curlers, charm or nature, was uncertain.

"I'm Lilith Zambini," She said coldly, "and my mother says that your mother is a no-good Mudblood chit who doesn't deserve the air she breathes."

Adrienne and Lianna gaped at the girl, before pouncing on her. "Don't you ever… insult… our… mother!" The words were punctuated with attacks from both twins. When the girls fell away, Lianna sported a nice scratch down the side of her face, Adrienne had a distinct handprint on her arm (she showed the surrounding crowd, who were mightily impressed with this trophy), but it was clear who came out worse from the fight.

Lilith Zambini, who had just moments ago been so bold in her pronunciation of disgust was rather more thankful when the lady herself walked into the room. "Professor," she grovelled, "Professor, these girls just attacked me! There was no provocation, and now look at me!" Her wail was insipid, and Hermione looked curiously at her children, who were rather bashful, although outraged at the misinformation. There was an awed silence, however, blocking the escape of the truth.

"The noise was heard in the Great Hall. I personally find this 'get to know you' time in the entrance hall a little unnecessary, but Professor Varimont assures me that it's necessary. It must be a Transfiguration thought. I am Professor Granger, and, since it's now time to go in, I'll escort Miss Zambini to Madam Pomfrey in the Hospital Wing, and the rest of you may go in." Lilith's eyes had gone wide and her face white at the mentioning of Hermione's name, and Hermione had a small insight into what had caused the altercation. After waving the rest of the children into the Great Hall, Hermione took the little goldilocks in hand, taking her straight to the Hospital Wing.

~*~

Lianna and Adrienne escorted the other first-years down the hall and crowded them onto the raised platform at the front of the Great Hall. Varimont was sitting calmly at the closest end of the Teacher's Table, and quietly got up to call names. The entire Great Hall had gone quiet when the children had entered, and fear had started to seep back into the faces of the children around Lianna and Adrienne. Varimont gave the instructions of what was to happen, and relaxed for the Sorting Hat Song.

It was short, but somehow, it slipped between the cracks in Lianna's hearing- she was captivated by the sight of the bedraggled witches' hat floating in the air and singing. Suddenly, it slumped back to the chair. Varimont began calling names.

"Andrews, Peter" started off the fun ("Hufflepuff!"), and Lianna was astounded at just how quickly the process went when she was the one standing in line. When she had been seated at the Teacher's Table with her mother, this process had dragged on for what had seemed like forever. Before she knew it, Adrienne was under the hat.

"Well, now," the hat spoke, for only Adrienne to hear.

"Well, now, yourself!" Adrienne replied silently, with amusement in her voice. There was a small, astonished silence from the hat.

"That doesn't happen often! Let's see now… Two strong bloodlines in you. Let's see; where would you like to go- Gryffindor or Slytherin? Ah, such a quick answer! Well, I suppose, you do have a rather negative stereotype of Slytherins, but it'd be cruel to put you there to change that. You'll got to…"

"GRYFFINDOR!" Adrienne mouthed silently along with the hat. She smiled slightly, before the hat was removed and the huge cheer from the Gryffindor table welcomed her down. Adrienne turned and smiled reassuringly at her sister, who was walking to the small stool.

Lianna felt positively dwarfed. The hat fell well down over her eyes, where it had sat nicely on Adrienne's head. The hat awoke on her head, and although she knew it would only talk to her, it still felt weird to be talking silently to a hat, no matter how long she'd been in the wizarding world.

"Another child of the same mother! Welcome, Lianna. I assume you'd like to stay with your sister? You've definitely the courage to do so. Well, let's put you in…"

"GRYFFINDOR!" the hat roared, and Lianna breathed a tiny sigh of relief. The roar of the table then drowned out all thought, and she was carried down to the table on their cheers. She sat herself down next to her sister, and they were instantly barraged with many questions.

"So, you've made it into our beloved house!" A tall, dark-haired fourth-year said jovially. "You'll be the talk of the school for a little while- children of a teacher! I'm glad you're in our house, though- now we'll get to see where all the best secrets of the castle are!" He beamed at them, and they merely smiled back, unsure just what was expected of them.

"I'm Jeremy Potter, by the way."

"Son of Harry Potter?" Lianna instantly asked, her curiosity piqued.

"Oh, that. Yes. Well, I didn't get to choose my parents- I have such a hard time getting that picture out of people's heads, and making my own picture clear there. But, then, I don't mind it that much." His smile was radiant. Lianna smiled back at him, and the combined glare of their smiles was enough to knock anyone around who happened to glance their way.

"Your mother's Hermione Granger, isn't she? I'd say that she'd be pretty famous too, wouldn't she? I mean, she almost single-handedly brought down the Death Eater cult, once dad had killed Voldemort, right?" Adrienne and Lianna exchanged glances- in all their years of knowledge combined, their mother had said almost nothing about her days as an Auror. "Must be related to that awful story that mama doesn't want to tell us," Adrienne had said one day. Lianna had agreed.

"I suppose. Mama doesn't like to talk about that sort of thing, although I'm sure that she'll say something about it in Defence, one day. Probably when we're looking at the abuse of power." Adrienne murmured thoughtfully. Jeremy looked interested at this, but said nothing more on the subject, tactfully.

He began another question, but was interrupted by the Headmistress' call for order.

"Welcome, first years! Welcome back, the rest of you. I'd like to give you all a long lecture about the importance of learning and school, but you wouldn't listen anyway, so why bother? I'm sure you're all starving, because your parents just don't feed you, so let the feast begin!" She clapped her hands together, and the plates miraculously filled with food.

Lianna grinned mischievously at the gaping faces of some of the Muggle-born first-years: this was probably their first real taste of magic. Lianna tried to think what life would be like without magic- probably a dull world, at best. She tried to imagine writing without the end of her quill tickling her face, or the pain that would be endured if she broke her arm and had to wait for it to mend. She suspected that magical accidents wouldn't happen, but where was the fun in that? She thought that Adrienne's whiskers had been particularly fetching.

Adrienne dug into the food almost immediately, passingly wondering at where her hunger had been hiding. The first-years paused momentarily, wonderment showing on their faces at all their favourite dishes displayed before them. Then amazement passed, and they all dug in as well. Adrienne nudged her sister, and Lianna's reflective moment passed, allowing her hunger full reign on the poor, defenceless food before her.

The food was whittled down, as was the students' hunger. Eyes were beginning to droop, and food turned aside. Minerva stood once again.

"This year, our Head Girl is Melissa Green from Hufflepuff," there was loud applause, mainly from the Hufflepuff table, "and our Head Boy is Roger Yale from Ravenclaw." Once again loud applause, mainly from the Ravenclaw table. "A few review notices for you: nobody goes into the Forbidden Forest- it's Forbidden." A few smatterings of polite laughter, but Minerva didn't seem to realise that she'd spoken a pun. "Only third years and above are permitted to go to Hogsmeade on the appointed weekends. Now, I will allow your prefects to take you all to bed." Minerva sat down, and there was a large swell of noise as everybody stood and began talking. There were several shouts of, "first years this way!" from assorted prefects, and the Great Hall emptied relatively quickly.

"The Sorting Feast of another year," Minerva said wearily to Marjory as the last of the children left.

Marjory just smiled a little.

~*~

"Now, are you sure that you're fine, Miss Zambini?" Hermione was still sitting with the terrified little girl, and she wasn't at all surprised when Varimont brought the Sorting Hat into the Hospital Wing to sort the girl there.

Unsurprisingly, it spluttered out, "Slytherin," although with somewhat distaste. The blonde girl glared at Hermione for a moment, then at Varimont, before asking if she was free to go.

"Are you sure you don't need me to take you down to your rooms? You were pretty shaken up…" Hermione had to say that torturing such unpleasant children as this was quite entertaining. She just hoped that she didn't come to enjoy it too much- she'd end up like Snape. Hermione shuddered at that thought in disgust.

Varimont smiled- not a nice smile, at that- and said, "don't worry, Hermione, I'll take Miss Zambini down to Snape's rooms to retrieve the password for her portrait. I'll ask Snape to keep a special eye on her for you."

"Oh, you don't have to do that," Hermione balked a little- setting Snape on someone was not something she'd want to do to even the most vile of people. But Varimont already had the girl up and was taking her by the arm, despite Hermione's spluttering and the look of utter terror on the little girl's face. Pomfrey came in to sit beside Hermione.

"Fate worse than death, I'd say."

"Me too- not entirely my idea. Any thoughts on how she managed to become the head of Gryffindor House?"

"Minerva wouldn't let her be head of Slytherin. I think she has ambitions for the Gryffindors."

"Good luck to her- when I was in Gryffindor my friends were so disgustingly brave and good it made my head hurt."

"I had thought it to be the other way around?"

"Probably. But impressions were everything- I wouldn't have done nearly so well on my OWLs and NEWTs if I'd been rash, would I?"

"Of course not. Impressions are not so important to you any more?"

"Of course not. Now I can tell the students what impressions to have of me, and the other teachers know who I am enough for impressions not to count. After all, isn't that the idea of growing up?"

"So they say, dear. You'd better go and eat something, or you'll fade away."

"Oh, that's not likely to happen any time soon."

"You look thin to me."

"That's because you're not wearing your glasses."

"I don't wear glasses."

"Maybe you need to."

"Maybe you need to eat more."

"Goodnight Poppy,"

"Sleep well dear. Don't forget to eat."

"I won't. Goodnight."

Hermione slipped out of the Hospital Wing and headed towards the Kitchen. The House Elves were still a little wary of her, but Hermione's campaign for their freedom had run into a very large obstacle- she'd found out that freed House Elves were more prone to dying than their bonded counterparts. They tended to waste away, if they didn't openly go out and kill themselves. Hermione had decided to ponder her views on their freedom for a while, and the House Elves appreciated it. She tickled the pear.

"Good Evening, Miss Hermione!" Dobby's voice echoed in the low-roofed kitchens.

"Good Evening, Dobby. How are you?" Hermione sat slowly, feeling her years.

"Dobby is good, thanking you for asking, Miss. What is Miss wanting to eat?"

"Dobby, anything to eat would be nice. I missed dinner."

"Well, Dobby has just what Miss wants, then!"

And Hermione found herself confronted with large platters of food, stuffed full of her favourite foods. "Thankyou, Dobby," Hermione murmured as she began to gorge herself on the delicious food.

~*~

"How do you think Mama's doing, Li?"

"Dunno, Ri. Hope she's coping all right. These beds are huge!"

Lianna sprawled spread-eagled on her bed before sitting upright again.

"No bigger than our beds at home, Li. They're just in bigger rooms." The twins looked at the large, circular tower where their beds were located. The other girls were all similarly awestruck at their rooms.

"I'm Melissa Whitmore," a slightly rounded, smiling faced brunette introduced herself. She was in the bed beside Adrienne. "I'm Muggle-born, and this is just amazing!" Her eyes scanned the high roof and the almost garish wall coverings and rugs. "Who ever thought? Me! A witch! Ha! I laughed when I got my letter. My parents didn't believe either- one of the professors actually had to come and talk to my parents. It still makes me wonder!" She was very expressive with her hands as she talked, and her face was animated.

"Our mother's a Muggle-born. Granny and Pop are Muggles. They're so funny! We go and see them every year for Christmas, and they use electrical lights on their trees. Of course, they don't have fairies. Which is a good thing, because fairies bite." Lianna babbled. Adrienne grinned, thankful that Lianna was babbling at someone other than her.

"Fairies? Really? How marvellous! I can't wait for Christmas here!"

A small, red-haired girl entered the conversation at this point. "My cousin said that it's really very pretty. The fairies are very well behaved here, because Professor Flitwick is here. I'm Sarah Weasley." She smiled wistfully.

"Oh! So you're Graham's sister?" The girl looked a little startled at Lianna's outburst, but shook her head.

"No, he's my cousin. Here, let me draw you a little family tree- my family's so sprawling you have to have a diagram to figure it all out." The little girl collected a quill, ink and parchment and sat on Lianna's bed.

"Here's Gran and Gramps. Gramps was Minister of Magic until three years ago, when he retired. Romulus Meyton took over after him. They had seven kids, my uncles and aunt. Bill, Charlie, Percy, Fred and George- they're twins, Ron and Ginny."

"Oh!" Lianna interrupted, "Mama said that Ginny delivered us!"

"Yes, she's a midwife. Uncle Bill has three kids: Susanna, who's in her second year of University, Hayley, who's in seventh year this year, and Malcolm, who's ten. Yes, quite an age gap, but he's about the same age as my little brother, so they play together all the time.

"Uncle Charlie has only one child, Lillian, or Lily, as we call her. She's just out of school this year. She's reading Applied Transfiguration at Greenwich.

"Uncle Percy has four kids. Mark, Hannah, Joshua and Tansy. They're all a year apart, with Mark in seventh year, Hannah in sixth, and so on.

"Uncle Fred has two kids- twins- Henry and John. They're both seven.

"Uncle George has two kids, Luke and Graham. Luke's in second year, Graham's first, like me.

"My dad's Ron. There's me, and Joseph, who's ten, and Calista, who's eight.

"Aunt Ginny got married last year. She doesn't have any kids yet, but last time we heard from her they were trying." Sarah looked at her little diagram, and nodded, satisfied.

Adrienne and the other girls crowded around, looking on in amazement. "That's a big family, Sarah," Ri murmured.

"Yeah," the other girl in their dorm room said. "Kimi Senoua," she introduced herself. "I'm fourth-generation witch." She was short, about as short as Lianna. Her hair was dark, glossy black, which matched her Asian countenance.

"I'm really tired," Lianna piped up, bluntly to the point. The general consensus agreed, and the lights went out.

"Night, Ri," Lianna murmured softly.

"Night, Li."

~*~

Another episode: thanks heaps to all of you: the readers, the reviewers; the other writers who write so much! A few of you are really inspirational!!

*kitten