~Yo, I just wanna say, I've only got one review on this story! *sob*
Please, please, PLEASE review!!!!!! I enjoy getting reviews, it lets me
know people are actually reading my story. I don't want to be posting for
nothing. Thanks a bunch to Elf Cowgirl! You've reviewed about every single
chapter in every single one of my stories! Also, mucho thanks to TC!!!!!
And Erin, too!!!!! Please review!~
Marie sat between Seamus Finnigan and Ron, with Hermione and Harry across
the table from her. She'd been sorted into Gryffindor. Nobody noticed. She was so small,
everyone else just took her for a first year. She smiled a bit, imagining the looks on their
faces when she turned up in class with the fifth years the next day.
Marie didn't eat much at all. Instead, she stared with wide eyes at everything
around her. She kept nudging Ron and asking him questions, mostly, "Who's that?" and
"What's that?" or "Tell me about this!"
"Eat something," Hermione encouraged. "We start classes tomorrow, you need
your strength."
"I'm not hungry," Marie said distractedly. She pointed to one of the ghosts and
asked, "Who's that?"
"The Bloody Baron," Harry told her.
"Why's he all bloody?" she asked. He shrugged. It was difficult to hold a
conversation with her. She was constantly distracted, twisting around to see something
else or ask questions about stuff.
"What's so great about Hogwarts?" Ron asked as she went to ask him something
else. "I mean, it can't be THAT different from your old school."
"You have no idea," Marie said. "My old school was really small, and definitely
not this fancy."
"Not fancy how?" Hermione asked curiously. Marie pushed aside the plate of
chicken Ron offered her. Hermione leaned forward eagerly.
"Well, our uniforms weren't anything like this," Marie began. "It was pretty much
just a T-shirt that said which house you were in. And, the grounds were a lot smaller.
But we had the best Quidditch pitch in the world! It was way out in the middle of an open
field, and all you could see was the sky when you looked up. It was the best! I was the
only girl on our house team. As a matter of fact, I was the only girl on ANY of the teams.
The school was kind of old-fashioned, I guess, because boys were always favored. Girls
weren't even ALLOWED on Quidditch teams. I was an exception, because we didn't
have a Keeper last year. There weren't any female teachers there, and I was one of the
only girls attending. It wasn't fair at all, I hated it." She gave a miserable sigh. She
glanced up at them, and suddenly became aware that the whole table had been listening to
her tale.
"Mind your own business!" Marie hollered at them. They quickly went back to
eating their dinner and conversed to themselves. Ron noted that most of them were
talking about the funny first year at the end of the table who was telling stories.
"So, is that why you moved?" Harry asked. "Because your old school was so
terrible?"
"No, my dad got transferred." Marie smiled. "But believe me, I was glad for the
change. Now I can play Quidditch and walk down the halls without being stared at like
some kind of freak."
The rest of the table quickly turned away, pretending they hadn't been staring at
her. Marie frowned, and snarled, "I'm gonna curse every single one of you!"
"Tell us more about your family," Hermione put in quickly, not wanting a fight.
"Well, I live with my dad and my little sister," Marie said, immediately forgetting
about threatening the entire Gryffindor house. "My parents were never married. My dad
got custody of me when I was born. They had a big fight, and now they hate each other, I
guess. I've never really met her, but my dad hates to talk about her."
"What about your sister?" Ron asked. Marie smiled and said, "She's four. She's
the most adorable thing in the world! She loves me, I'm her idol. She's SO smart, and she
loves to read, just like me! She started talking really early, too, just like I did. Our dad
reads a lot, so we both learned really young. She was sad when I had to go off to school,
but I'm sending her an owl as often as I can, and I'm going down to Hogsmeade, too, and
send her candy and little things she'll like. What do you think she'll like better, chocolate
frogs or…….."
This went on for a while. Marie was obviously very fond of her sister. They
imagined that it must have been quite painful for Marie to leave Angel (that was her
sister's name) behind. From what they heard, she had looked after her sister from the
very beginning.
Ron looked confused. "But, if your dad hates your mom, then how do you have a
little sister at all, especially if she's so much younger than you?"
Marie shoved the plate of mashed potatoes back at Seamus, insisting that she
wasn't hungry. "Well, Angel isn't actually my sister. She's my half-sister. My dad used
to be married. I was about eight when he married Angel's mom. But they got divorced,
just a while after Angel was born, and my dad got custody."
"Wow, that's really interesting." Hermione had been listening with wide eyes the
whole time.
"You've got a funny accent," Parvati Patil stated. Marie looked Parvati over, then
made a face and said, for the whole table to hear, "I don't have an accent! It's all of YOU
who got the accents!"
Parvati rolled her eyes and went back to conversing with her friends.
Marie yawned a bit and asked when they were allowed to sleep. Just then,
Professor Dumbledore told everyone to get back to their dormitories.
"Thank goodness," Marie muttered to Hermione, who she was getting to be quite
good friends with, "or I might have fallen asleep right on my plate."
"Your EMPTY plate," Ron pointed out. "You didn't eat a bite!"
"Excuse me, I wasn't talking to you! Besides, I wasn't hungry."
"Hungry or not, eating is necessary to prevent starvation!" Ron cried. He and
Marie argued this way all the way into the Gryffindor common room and right up to the
dormitories. They finished with them both shouting, "FINE!" and slamming the doors at
the same time.
"I'm glad to see that you and Ron are such good friends," Hermione commented
sarcastically, climbing into her bed. Marie crawled into her own bed and stated, "He
started it. If he wasn't so worried about me starving myself, this wouldn't have happened.
Is it my fault I wasn't hungry?"
Hermione was about to answer, but a snore told her that Marie was asleep.
Marie sat down next to Hermione at breakfast the next day, blinking sleepily,
obviously not fully awake. Ron offered her a piece of toast. She shook her head no and
said, "I'm not hungry."
Ron's eyes got really big and he cried, "See?! You're doing it AGAIN! What, are you
anorexic or something? You don't eat!"
"No I don't, when I'm not hungry," Marie said grumpily. "I never eat in the
morning." Harry nearly laughed at the look on Ron's face. But he could understand
where Ron was coming from. If you were from a not-so-wealthy family, if there was food
you ate it.
Hermione looked Marie over, and had to suppress a giggle. Marie's hair was
standing on end. She looked extremely sleepy, and though she wore her robes, Hermione
could see that Marie had forgotten shoes. She was barefoot. Hermione was about to point
this out, but Marie said, "Yeah, I know. I never wear shoes if I can help it."
"You may need them," Harry said, "depending on what Hagrid has in store for us
in Care of Magical Creatures."
They had received their schedules. Marie had every class with Harry, Hermione,
and Ron, except that she had Divination with Harry and Ron. Hermione was not taking
that class.
Marie jumped in surprise as a screech announced the arrival of the mail. Her eyes
got very wide at the sight of hundreds of owls streaming into the room.
"What's happening?!" she cried. Ron rolled his eyes and muttered, "It's just the
mail. Didn't you get mail at your old school?"
"Yeah, but hardly anybody had an owl! Besides, any letters went right to the
teachers, who passed them out to us later."
A barn owl landed on Marie's plate, dropped an envelope in her lap. Marie cried,
"Hi Butterscotch!"
"Butterscotch?" Harry asked in surprise.
"Hey, I'm weird," Marie said simply. "Besides, Angel named her, not me. Look,
she sent me a letter!"
"Dear Marie,
I miss you. I wish I was at the shcool so I could be with you.
Daddy says you'll be home at Crismas. I hope so, becase I cant wait to see
you. Dont tell Daddy I rote you a letter becase he siad I wasnt suposed
to. Dont ferget to send me a present from Hosmeed like you sed you
wood. I love you! Come home soon.
Love,
Angel."
Marie read the letter out loud. "Isn't it cute?!"
"She can't spell very well," Ron pointed out.
"Insult my sister again and it'll be your last," Marie snapped. "Anyway, cut her
some slack. She's only four."
"She wrote that all on her own?" Hermione asked, suddenly very interested. "And
she's only FOUR?"
"Yeah," Marie stated proudly. "I told you she was smart."
She flipped the letter over and began to write back.
"Dear Angel,
I won't tell Dad you wrote to me. I
won't forget your present from Hogsmeade. I
am not sure if I am coming home for
Christmas, but I hope that I can. I miss you,
too! I've made some new friends over here, and
I've told them all about my favorite sister back
home. I'm sending you a letter every day, and
I want to hear all about 'Hogwarts, A History.'
If I buy any books in Hogsmeade, I'll send them
right to you. I love you and I miss you very
much!
Your big sis,
Marie."
Harry watched Marie write her letter, and asked, "She's reading 'Hogwarts, A
History'?"
"Yeah. So?"
"That's a bit advanced for a four-year-old, isn't it?"
"Like I said, she's really smart. She wanted to know all about where I'm going, so
I gave her my copy. You got a problem with that?" Marie frowned at him. Harry, not
wanting a fight, held up his hands and said, "No, no problem. Just curious."
"Curiosity killed the cat," Marie stated as she reattached the letter to
Butterscotch's leg and watched him fly away. Harry, Ron, and Hermione stared in
amazement at her.
"She was plenty curious yesterday," Ron muttered. "She should be dead by now."
Harry was thinking the same thing, except that he wasn't wishing death upon
Marie. He decided that with her around, it was going to be a pretty weird school year.
Marie sat between Seamus Finnigan and Ron, with Hermione and Harry across
the table from her. She'd been sorted into Gryffindor. Nobody noticed. She was so small,
everyone else just took her for a first year. She smiled a bit, imagining the looks on their
faces when she turned up in class with the fifth years the next day.
Marie didn't eat much at all. Instead, she stared with wide eyes at everything
around her. She kept nudging Ron and asking him questions, mostly, "Who's that?" and
"What's that?" or "Tell me about this!"
"Eat something," Hermione encouraged. "We start classes tomorrow, you need
your strength."
"I'm not hungry," Marie said distractedly. She pointed to one of the ghosts and
asked, "Who's that?"
"The Bloody Baron," Harry told her.
"Why's he all bloody?" she asked. He shrugged. It was difficult to hold a
conversation with her. She was constantly distracted, twisting around to see something
else or ask questions about stuff.
"What's so great about Hogwarts?" Ron asked as she went to ask him something
else. "I mean, it can't be THAT different from your old school."
"You have no idea," Marie said. "My old school was really small, and definitely
not this fancy."
"Not fancy how?" Hermione asked curiously. Marie pushed aside the plate of
chicken Ron offered her. Hermione leaned forward eagerly.
"Well, our uniforms weren't anything like this," Marie began. "It was pretty much
just a T-shirt that said which house you were in. And, the grounds were a lot smaller.
But we had the best Quidditch pitch in the world! It was way out in the middle of an open
field, and all you could see was the sky when you looked up. It was the best! I was the
only girl on our house team. As a matter of fact, I was the only girl on ANY of the teams.
The school was kind of old-fashioned, I guess, because boys were always favored. Girls
weren't even ALLOWED on Quidditch teams. I was an exception, because we didn't
have a Keeper last year. There weren't any female teachers there, and I was one of the
only girls attending. It wasn't fair at all, I hated it." She gave a miserable sigh. She
glanced up at them, and suddenly became aware that the whole table had been listening to
her tale.
"Mind your own business!" Marie hollered at them. They quickly went back to
eating their dinner and conversed to themselves. Ron noted that most of them were
talking about the funny first year at the end of the table who was telling stories.
"So, is that why you moved?" Harry asked. "Because your old school was so
terrible?"
"No, my dad got transferred." Marie smiled. "But believe me, I was glad for the
change. Now I can play Quidditch and walk down the halls without being stared at like
some kind of freak."
The rest of the table quickly turned away, pretending they hadn't been staring at
her. Marie frowned, and snarled, "I'm gonna curse every single one of you!"
"Tell us more about your family," Hermione put in quickly, not wanting a fight.
"Well, I live with my dad and my little sister," Marie said, immediately forgetting
about threatening the entire Gryffindor house. "My parents were never married. My dad
got custody of me when I was born. They had a big fight, and now they hate each other, I
guess. I've never really met her, but my dad hates to talk about her."
"What about your sister?" Ron asked. Marie smiled and said, "She's four. She's
the most adorable thing in the world! She loves me, I'm her idol. She's SO smart, and she
loves to read, just like me! She started talking really early, too, just like I did. Our dad
reads a lot, so we both learned really young. She was sad when I had to go off to school,
but I'm sending her an owl as often as I can, and I'm going down to Hogsmeade, too, and
send her candy and little things she'll like. What do you think she'll like better, chocolate
frogs or…….."
This went on for a while. Marie was obviously very fond of her sister. They
imagined that it must have been quite painful for Marie to leave Angel (that was her
sister's name) behind. From what they heard, she had looked after her sister from the
very beginning.
Ron looked confused. "But, if your dad hates your mom, then how do you have a
little sister at all, especially if she's so much younger than you?"
Marie shoved the plate of mashed potatoes back at Seamus, insisting that she
wasn't hungry. "Well, Angel isn't actually my sister. She's my half-sister. My dad used
to be married. I was about eight when he married Angel's mom. But they got divorced,
just a while after Angel was born, and my dad got custody."
"Wow, that's really interesting." Hermione had been listening with wide eyes the
whole time.
"You've got a funny accent," Parvati Patil stated. Marie looked Parvati over, then
made a face and said, for the whole table to hear, "I don't have an accent! It's all of YOU
who got the accents!"
Parvati rolled her eyes and went back to conversing with her friends.
Marie yawned a bit and asked when they were allowed to sleep. Just then,
Professor Dumbledore told everyone to get back to their dormitories.
"Thank goodness," Marie muttered to Hermione, who she was getting to be quite
good friends with, "or I might have fallen asleep right on my plate."
"Your EMPTY plate," Ron pointed out. "You didn't eat a bite!"
"Excuse me, I wasn't talking to you! Besides, I wasn't hungry."
"Hungry or not, eating is necessary to prevent starvation!" Ron cried. He and
Marie argued this way all the way into the Gryffindor common room and right up to the
dormitories. They finished with them both shouting, "FINE!" and slamming the doors at
the same time.
"I'm glad to see that you and Ron are such good friends," Hermione commented
sarcastically, climbing into her bed. Marie crawled into her own bed and stated, "He
started it. If he wasn't so worried about me starving myself, this wouldn't have happened.
Is it my fault I wasn't hungry?"
Hermione was about to answer, but a snore told her that Marie was asleep.
Marie sat down next to Hermione at breakfast the next day, blinking sleepily,
obviously not fully awake. Ron offered her a piece of toast. She shook her head no and
said, "I'm not hungry."
Ron's eyes got really big and he cried, "See?! You're doing it AGAIN! What, are you
anorexic or something? You don't eat!"
"No I don't, when I'm not hungry," Marie said grumpily. "I never eat in the
morning." Harry nearly laughed at the look on Ron's face. But he could understand
where Ron was coming from. If you were from a not-so-wealthy family, if there was food
you ate it.
Hermione looked Marie over, and had to suppress a giggle. Marie's hair was
standing on end. She looked extremely sleepy, and though she wore her robes, Hermione
could see that Marie had forgotten shoes. She was barefoot. Hermione was about to point
this out, but Marie said, "Yeah, I know. I never wear shoes if I can help it."
"You may need them," Harry said, "depending on what Hagrid has in store for us
in Care of Magical Creatures."
They had received their schedules. Marie had every class with Harry, Hermione,
and Ron, except that she had Divination with Harry and Ron. Hermione was not taking
that class.
Marie jumped in surprise as a screech announced the arrival of the mail. Her eyes
got very wide at the sight of hundreds of owls streaming into the room.
"What's happening?!" she cried. Ron rolled his eyes and muttered, "It's just the
mail. Didn't you get mail at your old school?"
"Yeah, but hardly anybody had an owl! Besides, any letters went right to the
teachers, who passed them out to us later."
A barn owl landed on Marie's plate, dropped an envelope in her lap. Marie cried,
"Hi Butterscotch!"
"Butterscotch?" Harry asked in surprise.
"Hey, I'm weird," Marie said simply. "Besides, Angel named her, not me. Look,
she sent me a letter!"
"Dear Marie,
I miss you. I wish I was at the shcool so I could be with you.
Daddy says you'll be home at Crismas. I hope so, becase I cant wait to see
you. Dont tell Daddy I rote you a letter becase he siad I wasnt suposed
to. Dont ferget to send me a present from Hosmeed like you sed you
wood. I love you! Come home soon.
Love,
Angel."
Marie read the letter out loud. "Isn't it cute?!"
"She can't spell very well," Ron pointed out.
"Insult my sister again and it'll be your last," Marie snapped. "Anyway, cut her
some slack. She's only four."
"She wrote that all on her own?" Hermione asked, suddenly very interested. "And
she's only FOUR?"
"Yeah," Marie stated proudly. "I told you she was smart."
She flipped the letter over and began to write back.
"Dear Angel,
I won't tell Dad you wrote to me. I
won't forget your present from Hogsmeade. I
am not sure if I am coming home for
Christmas, but I hope that I can. I miss you,
too! I've made some new friends over here, and
I've told them all about my favorite sister back
home. I'm sending you a letter every day, and
I want to hear all about 'Hogwarts, A History.'
If I buy any books in Hogsmeade, I'll send them
right to you. I love you and I miss you very
much!
Your big sis,
Marie."
Harry watched Marie write her letter, and asked, "She's reading 'Hogwarts, A
History'?"
"Yeah. So?"
"That's a bit advanced for a four-year-old, isn't it?"
"Like I said, she's really smart. She wanted to know all about where I'm going, so
I gave her my copy. You got a problem with that?" Marie frowned at him. Harry, not
wanting a fight, held up his hands and said, "No, no problem. Just curious."
"Curiosity killed the cat," Marie stated as she reattached the letter to
Butterscotch's leg and watched him fly away. Harry, Ron, and Hermione stared in
amazement at her.
"She was plenty curious yesterday," Ron muttered. "She should be dead by now."
Harry was thinking the same thing, except that he wasn't wishing death upon
Marie. He decided that with her around, it was going to be a pretty weird school year.