Magical Dreams
Set with new characters being the focus, about 17 years after Voldemort was defeated, at the cost of Dumbledore and Harry's lives, and the school headmistress in Minerva, Snape being the Deputy Head. Hermione Weasley now teaches Transfiguration (yes, she's married to Ron, a quidditch fan and member of the Ministry of Magic.) The Minister for Magic is still Cornelius Fudge. The timetable is as below.
9am – Lesson 1
10.30am – 20 minutes break
10.50am – Lesson 2
11.50am – Lunch Hour
12.50pm – Study Time
1pm – Lesson 3
2.30pm – Lesson 4
4pm – End of school day
Breakfast is available from 6-9am. Lunch is available from 11.50am-1pm. Tea, or dinner, is available from 5-6pm. Supper is available any time between 8-10pm. Bells ring on the hour every hour.
Chapter 1; Introduction
Sighing, Julia rubbed her head. It had been quite a welcoming feast last night. She still couldn't quite believe that she was at a place called Hogwarts, and learning magic – she even had the wand! Up until a few weeks ago, she had believed it to be a pile of nonsense invented to sell movies and books. Now she couldn't believe how wrong she had been.
Looking around the dormitory, she spotted the 3 other first year girls she shared with. Katie had been best friends with her since playschool, but there'd been one big secret she'd been keeping – whilst she had gone to normal muggle schools, her parents were both magical, and she'd known about it. She told Julia all about it when she had shared her news of the letter, and they had both gone to Diagon Alley together, as her parents knew her way around, and stopped them from getting lost. Julia held no grudge against Katie – she understood perfectly why she hadn't said anything; she couldn't.
One of the other girls was called Aria, and was as stuck-up as they come; she came from an old wizarding family, and was as pure-blood as they come. Everyone was surprised she had gotten sorted into Hufflepuff rather than Slytherin, although none so shocked as her herself; she'd been almost in tears. After, of course, the bout of fury in which she proved her skills as a witch, by turning a second year Hufflepuff into a rat.
The third girl who Julia shared with was called Miranda, already nicknamed Mirrie for short. She seemed a nice sort of girl, but she was very quiet, and surprisingly intelligent. All in all, Julia felt the three girls she shared with were very bright; not at all dim, as Hufflepuff's supposedly were. Julia had a feeling that Hufflepuff was going to get some well-deserved glory, this year.
A bell rang loudly, just as Julia had finished dressing, wearing her Lycra leggings and a tight vest top over her undergarments – she never felt comfortable wearing just her underclothes beneath her robe. Well, she had deduced that much in the space of less than a day. Pulling her robe over her head, she settled it on her shoulders, hearing groans from Katie's bed, contrasting with the loud swearing from Aria's. Mirrie was nowhere to be seen; Julia thought her bed looked empty in the dim light available when she was woken by the hooting of her owl.
That, she thought, had to be another one of the major plusses – she finally had a pet, a nocturnal pet! One that could even bring her the mail, without slobbering all over it and rendering it illegible. She had named her unusual owl Torrie – a shortened version of Tornado, a name derived from the shocking black and grey shades in the owl's feathers. Torrie, perched on her wardrobe, let out a loud hoot directed at Aria; an improvement in behaviour from the previous night, when she had emptied her bladder on Aria's freshly washed hair.
"I'll take you down to the owlery in a minute, Torrie!" Julia impatiently uttered, finding the right books for her first day of magic. "Potions first," she muttered to herself, "With charms before lunch, and double transfiguration this afternoon." Hurriedly, she packed her potions, charms and transfiguration books into her bag, stuffing her ingredients in with them, after a long search for the rogue Potions book. Her cauldron she grabbed and put her bag into, stopping to shove her wand into the pocket inside her robe.
Rushing over to the door, she tripped and went flying – along with her cauldron and bag. Her bag, thankfully, prevented anything from breaking or taking a flying lesson of their own, but her cauldron hit Aria's legs hard enough to bruise.
"Sorry!" she exclaimed, dashing over to pick her cauldron up, once more putting her bag into it, "Is your leg all right, Aria?" she queried.
Aria glared at her, and snapped, "All right? All right? You throw a heavy cauldron at it, and then think to consider the state of my legs! I'm going to the infirmary. You'd better hope nothings broken. Then again, even if it isn't, you'd better watch out."
Pushing the covers off, Aria yanked her nightwear off, and changed into her schoolwear, using her dressing stand to hide behind, to save her the shame of showing her body to the others. Once dressed, she grabbed her bag and slammed out of the dormitory.
Katie, slowly dressing said reproachfully, "You shouldn't have done that, Julia."
"It wasn't number one on my list of priorities," Julia retorted, glaring at her friend, "I was in a hurry. Now there's no time to take Torrie to the owlery – we've wasted half an hour since the bell went! I can't believe it took so long to find that damn po-"
"Relax," Katie cut in, "We'll get breakfast, then go to potions. Forget Aria, she's probably giving herself undeserved props anyway."
The look the girls exchanged showed neither believed that, but they smiled all the same, as they made their way down to the Great Hall, dragging their bags and cauldrons behind them.
On arrival, there was no sign of Aria, and they sat with the first year boys – Harry Weasley, Hermione's eldest, Jim Jinksky, Robert Alom and Michael Feroshi. Harry had bright red hair, and startlingly green eyes – the trait that caused his parents to name him after their deceased best friend. Jim was a skinny boy, tall and lanky, with short grayish hair, and big glasses. Robert was a bulky boy, with short black hair, and a grin as wide as his face, matching his reputation as one of the friendliest boys in their year. Michael, a head shorter than Jim, had long black hair in what muggles called dreadlocks, and was relatively quiet, unless he was listening to the music he loved; heavy metal. His favourite band, often starring on the Worldwide Metal Network, was the Grains, a notoriously bad-tempered metal band. In contrast to their seemingly innocent name, created when they managed to rub grains into a muggles skin – regardless of their fame, they were purebloods who hated muggles.
Katie smiled broadly at the boys, always having been quite flirtatious; her long black curls lured boys, just as her blue-grey eyes seduced them. She was about normal height, the same as Julia, and her figure was slim, until it reached the top – her chest was large for her age. Another asset she tended to boast, although 11 year old boys just didn't seem to be overly interested, although some of the other years had been eyeing Katie up.
Julia rolled her eyes at her friend, and sat next to Robert, greeting him with, "Morning," in response to his wide smile. He had the knack of making a person think that he only smiled at you, when he smiled at all, making you feel really special.
"Where's Aria?" Michael enquired, scowling around at the table, searching for her familiar glare.
Katie laughed in a really girly way, the type of laugh that's made to attract men, and said, "Julia tripped and her cauldron hit her in the legs. She's sulking in the infirmary."
"Good!" the boys said together, grinning – nobody liked Aria.
Tucking into bacon and eggs, Julia couldn't help but smile; somehow Aria didn't seem so scary a prospect anymore. Katie, meanwhile, drank a lot of pumpkin juice, touching no food; everyone knew she was fussy about her figure, and they hadn't even been there 24 hours!
All too soon, they were headed towards the dungeons – they had potions with the Gryffindors. In the queue, Katie and Julia fell into a hushed silence, as they listened to many of the Gryffindors discussing strange dreams they'd had – which had then come true. Exchanging looks of scorn, Katie and Julia laughed, then Katie said tartly, "No wonder Gryffindors are so brave. They're scared of their dreams!"
Several Hufflepuff's chuckled heartily at this; the Gryffindors were pretty stuck up and arrogant. Then, Snape was at the door in a flash of black, ordering them into the dungeon, and into silence.
Beginning his yearly threats and warnings, Snape began to spark fear in the hearts of Gryffindors and Hufflepuff's alike, when a knock at the door rudely interrupted him. Glaring, Snape shouted, "Enter!"
Aria limped in, pain etching her face. Julia gave Katie a worried glance; Katie returned it with a rolling of her eyes, clearly showing what she thought of Aria's injuries. "The nurse can fix anything," Katie whispered, "She's milking it for all she can get."
"SILENCE!" Snape shouted, as Katie wasn't the only source of murmurs, "Why, pray tell, are you late?"
Snape's tone was icy, clearly suggesting torture at the very least. Aria looked up, no fear in her face, and said, "I apologise, Professor Snape. I was looking forward to this lesson, but Julia so rudely threw her cauldron at my leg, and I had to get it fixed in the Infirmary. I'm only sorry I'm not in your house, Professor – I had been hoping to be a Slytherin."
Snape smiled at Aria, and said, "Please, sit."
Turning to Julia, he informed her that she would meet him at 6pm tomorrow in the smallest dungeon for detention. By the time lunch arrived, Julia was very annoyed – detention was one thing, detention with Snape was quite another. And she had been a total failure in charms; she could not for the life of her get her feather to levitate. Entering Transfiguration, she had no higher hopes of doing any better, just hopes of doing no worse.
"Sit," Professor Weasley said, proceeding to lecture them on the intelligence needed to master the art of transfiguration, giving them each a beetle to turn into a button, and a chapter to read for homework. By the time the 3 hours were up, Julia was fully certain there was a mistake, and she didn't have an ounce of magic in her.
"Relax," Katie said soothingly at supper, "You'll be fine. Its just stress, and no wonder-"
She paused, to glare at Aria, before saying, "Let's go to bed. We can read that chapter before, if we're lucky."
When they arrived in their dormitory, Katie said, "Quick! Get your book out, and put your wand on your desk, now!"
Obliging, Julia raised her eyebrows at her friend, who had pointed at Aria's bed with her wand. "She'll get a nice surprise when she goes to sleep," Katie replied, grinning, "I learnt something from having 3 older brothers!"
Julia smiled in return, and both girls read the chapter on an introduction to transfiguration, and they were almost asleep when Aria arrived, and within seconds of her arrival they heard her snores – then her scream. Pretending to remain asleep, they chuckled silently, as Aria cursed the dragon dung that had suddenly covered her. The smell was so strong, they were almost choking – Aria went to shower, as Katie braved a look.
"You've made yourself an enemy too, Katie", Aria hissed, before going to shower. Julia looked worried as she fell into deep slumber, so deep, in fact, a Gryffindor may say that it would bring prophecies for the next day.
Authors Note: I haven't wrote for a while, or read HP for a while, but I felt like writing a fanfiction. All feedback is greatly appreciated.
