Chapter 2 - Well, this is definitely… confusing
Loz landed on a cold, hard floor, very painfully. She just about managed to not knock herself senseless (not hat she had any sense to begin with).
"Owwwwwwww," she whimpered quietly. "Bloody, stupid, blonde woman! Ow! Pushing me - ow - into that - ow - bloody thing! Owie! I'm really, really - ooh, my orange - hurting and where the - ouchie - hell am I?" She attempted to get up, but failed as Moj landed squarely on top of her.
"Ooh, a cushion!" she said, and then looked down. "Oh- sorry, Loz."
"Wheeeeeeeeeeeeeeee!" Beck landed with a heavy thud next to them, but appeared to be unaffected by the bruising bump.
"Beck, where's Clare?" Moj asked.
"Mojjy… can you get off me now…?" Loz croaked.
"Oopsie! Sorry, Loz!" She stood up. "Well, Beck?"
"I dunno."
"What do you mean, you don't know?!"
"… I don't know."
"Why the hell did you leave her there?! She'll be worried sick! You know what she's like!"
"It's not my fault! I just followed you! I thought she would too!" Clare landed gracefully on the floor next the arguing girls, looking slightly nauseous, and shuddered. "And I was right! HA!"
"Oh, that was horrible," Clare muttered. She looked up. "Why are we all wearing black robes?"
"What the…?!" cried Loz. "Yeah! Why are we wearing black robes?"
"And why have you just dropped out of the ceiling?" asked a new voice. They all looked in the direction of the unknown person, and saw a tall, stern-looking woman standing in front of about 120 children, around 11-12 years old.
"Holy mother of cheese…" said Loz.
"Hogwarts…" said Clare.
"Blimey…" said Beck.
"Cool…" said Moj.
"Am I seeing things?" Clare queried.
"Don't think so…" said Loz.
"Would you care to answer?" the woman asked. "And who are you?"
"Mary-Jo Lawrence, Lauren Margetts, Clare Smyth and Rebecca Dyer," Clare introduced them, pointing at each in turn.
"Who are you?" Moj asked. Clare smacked her arm and frowned.
"Don't be rude."
"I am Professor McGonagall," the woman replied. "And I ask you again to explain your actions."
"Um, we don't actually know why we fell out the ceiling though," said Beck. "One minute we were looking under Loz's bed, then we all fell through this black stuff-"
"A portal," Clare interrupted.
"-fine. We fell through this portal and ended up here. Hurting." She looked up. "But there's no portal up there. Bugger! How do we get back?"
"Do we want to?" Loz asked distantly. She had caught the eye of a good-looking, black-haired boy at the front of the large group, and was grinning at him.
"A portal?" repeated the woman. "Well, this is definitely… confusing, and not in my line of work at all. Why you are wearing official school robes when you are, apparently, not from our world, is beyond me? You'll have to come with me and speak with the Headmaster after the Sorting Ceremony and the meal. Follow me."
"You three," Clare whispered, "there's something else different about us. But what is it?" They shook their heads and shrugged.
"Why does it not feel right that we look the same age as these kids?" Moj murmured. "I feel a lot older than 11 in my mind. Are we definitely 11 years old?"
"There's some freaky deaky business going on here," Loz determined. "I don't like it." A sly grin spread across her face. "I like him though." She pointed to the boy she'd been smiling at, who walked just ahead of them. Moj and Beck chuckled. Clare rolled her eyes. But nothing more could be said, because the doors of the Great Hall swung open.
After the Sorting Hat had sung its song, McGonagall began to read the list of names of the pupils, one by one, to be sorted. The girls waited with boredom at the back of the group. This could take a while, and they all presumed they'd be left out. Well, of course they would. They'd dropped through a portal. They weren't expected, no one knew they would be there. So when,
"Dyer, Rebecca" was called out (somewhat confusedly) by McGonagall, many jaws dropped.
"Well, go on then, you silly mare," Loz whispered. She stumbled forward uncertainly.
"GRYFFINDOR!" yelled the hat, when she put it on. She looked at her friends, bewildered, as she went to sit down and they shrugged. The next of the girls was Moj. She too got Gryffindor.
As it turned out, all four girls were placed in Gryffindor, but they were still very confused (though Loz was also very happy because that good-looking boy was in Gryffindor as well, they were still smiling at each other).
"I don't get it," Beck mused. "How can we be on the list? We're not meant to be here."
"Well, obviously, we are because, otherwise, we wouldn't be on the list," replied Clare. "Think about it. We think our ages have been altered, we're on the list to attend the school, we've got all the stuff we need as though we've been here ages-"
"Yeah, yeah, whatever. But we're still not from here."
"Technically, we are. This is still earth and we're from earth. It might not be our earth, but it is-"
"Don't get technical on us again, Clare," Loz broke in. "You know it only confuses us. Just agree that it doesn't make sense."
"Oh yes, it definitely does not make any sense at all in the slightest bit-"
"Too far."
"Sorry. But all I'm trying to say is-"
"Well, don't try to say anything. It's confusing. Stop."
"All right."
"There now. Not so hard, is it?"
"So… we're going to be pupils of Hogwarts then," Beck said, befuddled.
"Coooooooooool," said Moj.
"But we need wands," said Loz.
"We've already got them," Clare informed her.
"No, we-"
"Check inside your robes." They all pulled a wand out from the inner pocket of their robes, flabbergasted.
"Ok… I really don't get it," said Beck. "This is quite worrying, actually."
"This probably means we have luggage too," said Clare.
"And homes," said Loz.
"And money," said Moj.
"Is that all you ever think of?" Clare asked.
"No, I did have one other thought, earlier. But I've forgotten it now. Oh wait, I know, it's about forgetting."
"…huh?"
"We're from another, different earth, right?"
"Yes."
"But we still know about Hogwarts, yeah?"
"Yes."
"How?"
"What?"
"How do we know about Hogwarts? I can't remember."
"…you know, she's right, for once," said Beck. "We knew all about Hogwarts back home. But how? I don't remember anything from back home at all."
"Me neither," said Loz.
"Perhaps Hogwarts does exist back home," said Clare, "and we just weren't meant to go to that one. Maybe we're Squibs back home… oh, I don't know! Probably best not to think about it. Too confusing."
"But confusion can be fun." All four girls turned to see who had said this, as it wasn't one of them. A boy had seated himself next to Loz.
"Who are you?" Moj asked abruptly, exactly as she'd done to McGonagall.
"Moj, don't be rude!" Loz hissed. "Hi, sorry about her." It was the boy she'd been smiling at since they arrived.
"Don't worry about it. I'm Sirius. Sirius Black," he replied.
"I'm Lauren, but don't call me that though, I hate it. Call me Loz."
"Why? It's a nice name."
"Well, I still don't like it, so please, call me Loz. Anyway, this is Moj. That's Beck, and she's Clare."
"I'm pleased to meet you all."
"The pleasure will be all ours, I'm sure." She glanced at Moj and her eyes flashed. Moj giggled. She knew that was her friend's way of silently saying "He's hot!"
"So, you going to explain about your appearance then? It was pretty cool, dropping out of the ceiling like that."
"Well, we found this portal under Lox's bed," Beck explained. "I accidentally pushed her through it-"
"Accidentally, my arse," Loz muttered.
"-anyway, she fell through, so we came after her. Suddenly, we've got wands, school robes, places at Hogwarts and we look 11."
"What do you mean, look 11?" Sirius questioned.
"Well, we think we might actually be a fair bit older than this back home," said Clare. "We're not sure, we don't really remember anything about where we're from, but we all feel a lot older than we look."
"How old do you think you are?"
"Probably… 16ish."
"It's scary," said Beck.
"I think it's cool. Weird, but cool," said Moj.
"It's certainly… different," said Sirius. "But different is good. Makes life interesting. You do realise you'll be the topic of conversation of weeks now, don't you? Maybe even months!"
"Oh great," Clare groaned.
"Oh, be quiet, it's cool!" said Loz.
"You would say that."
"She likes to be centre of attention," Moj told Sirius. "We all do, except Clare, but she's the worst for it and the one that gets away with it most. Bitch."
"That makes two of us," Sirius put in.
"You're just jealous, Mojjy," Loz teased lightly, "because I get lots of attention when I want it and you don't."
"Because you're such a bloody loud mouth, no one can get a word in edgeways."
"Speak for yourself, mate."
"You know she's right, Loz," said Beck.
"What is this? National 'Pick On Loz Day'?"
"Just leave her be," Clare instructed the other two girls. "You know she'll only make your lives living hell otherwise."
"Yeah, because she's evil," said Moj.
"I'm not evil! I'm just misunderstood."
"How you didn't get put in Slytherin, I'll never know."
"Who's being evil now?" She turned back to Sirius, who was chuckling to himself. "I'm not really evil, you know. Well, not to people I like, anyway."
"Remind me never tot get on the wrong side of you then," he laughed.
"I'm sure you'd make a worthy opponent."
"You'd bitch him to death, Loz," said Beck.
"Ignore them."
"That'll be sort of hard since they're pulling faces at you now," he said, laughing again.
"You're so immature," she told her friends, haughtily.
"Hey, we're only 11 years old, we're allowed to be," defended Beck, sticking her tongue out.
"You don't see Sirius being silly, do you?"
"I can be if you want me to be."
"Please don't. Not until we know you better. They'll just play up even more otherwise, and they'll be unbearable."
"Anyone would think she was the oldest," said Clare.
"I'm just mature, is all."
"PAH!" cried Beck. "You? Mature? PAH!!"
"I'll take it she's not then," said Sirius.
"If you believe that, you'll believe anything," Loz giggled. His grin widened.
"You know what?"
"What?"
"I think we're going to get along well.
"I certainly hope so…"