Disclaimer: You know the drill. Obviously I don't own Ron Weasley, Hermione Granger, Harry Potter, and company. They all belong to the lovely and talented J.K. Rowling. I did, however, create Juliana Greenwald and Steven Blake. They're mine. Don't take them, because I love them so!

Author's Notes: Thanks to Miles, Rissie, Dale, and, Clare for helping me during my summary crisis. It's amazing how much your brain doesn't work when you're running on low sleep. A little shout out to "Will & Grace" here with the "Told Ya So." And thank you for the reviews! I'll try to get Chapter 3 up as quickly as I can, but it's quite long and I'm still in the process of writing it.

Chapter 2/Geeks and Geeks

"And you're sure you want to do this?" Steven said.

"Of course I'm sure!" Juliana had her hand on the doorknob to a classroom she was just about to enter. Steven gave her a skeptical look.

"I'll be fine!" she reassured him. "I'm good at this!"

Steven shook his head. "You're a brave, brave soul. Good luck, luv." With that he kissed her cheek and left.

Juliana opened the door to the classroom and walked in. She closed the door and turned around to face the room before her. All of the occupants were acne-stricken, greasy haired boys that belonged to Ravenclaw. They all stopped talking about the latest issue of Popular Wizarding Science and stared at her with their mouths open. There was a shocked murmur making its way throughout them that Juliana thought sounded like, "A girl!" The boy who had the largest amount of pimples and the greasiest hair that was slicked back got up and walked to her. Juliana forced a smile. The boy seemed to have a cold. He sneezed, sniffed, and wiped his nose with his hand. He broke out into a metallic smile and offered the same hand to Juliana.

"Hi, I'm Marshall. Welcome to the Wizard's Chess Club!"

"I'm Juliana!" she said through her smile, trying to hide her disgust, as she lightly took his hand, shook it once, and dropped it. "Nice to…meet you!"

Marshall then proceeded to laugh the most obnoxious laugh Juliana had ever heard, which ended in a snort. "Well, come on, Juliana, don't be shy! Meet the guys!" He walked her over to the small cluster of boys. "These are the guys!" he said with his arm extended to them. Each one of them did a hand gesture Juliana assumed they thought was cool or impressive. She just continued her plastered smile and nodded to each of them.

"Sit down! Sit down!" Marshall said excitedly. "We're gonna start the meeting!" Juliana slid into a desk, making sure to keep a space between her and the boy next to her. She heard raspy breathing and turned to him. He pushed his glasses up his shiny nose and waved.

"I'm Norm!" he said looking her up and down.

"Hi, Norm." Juliana crossed her arms and faced forward. She looked at her watch. She had only been in there for 5 minutes and it felt like an hour.

Marshall stood at the front of the classroom. "As president of the Wizard's Chess Club, I'm pleased to announce to you all--" He sniffed and continued on, "That Professor McGonagall said if we win the championship tournament this year, she will have special robes made for us. They'll say 'Wizard's Chess Club' on the back and have our names and year we graduate from Hogwarts on the front." He sniffed again and wiped his nose. The boys all shifted around and gave each other excited looks. "Well, that's the only announcement I have. So with that said…" Marshall waved his wand and several chessboards appeared in front of them. "We need some serious practice if we want those robes! Juliana, I'll be your partner since you're new."

All of the boys looked disappointed and Juliana laughed nervously. Halfway into her game with Marshall (of which he was winning), the boy who introduced himself to her as Norm came over.

"Oh, hey, Norm! Knight to F6," Marshall said without taking his eyes off the board. Juliana stared at the game hopelessly. "Norm, tell me, did you read that article about ultra-magnetism in Muggle Science the other day?"

"Indeed, I did. Why?"

"Have any thoughts? Rook to A5."

"Well, Marshall, to explain the muggle theory of ultra-magnetism, a times the cognate of c, you would simply coerce the first coefficient to merge with the second, causing a nuclear explosion."

"Good point. But did you consider the chemical aftermath? Queen to B12. Checkmate." The board disappeared with curling smoke.

"Ah. You got me there. Unless you magnetically charge the square of the fourth numeral with nine gamma radioactive..."

Juliana drifted into boredom and a daydream about Ron and a dark corridor…

"Well THAT was a complete waste of time!" Juliana dropped her bag on the floor and plopped into an armchair in the Gryffindor common room. Steven started to say something and then clamped his hands over his mouth, laughing behind them. "Bloody hell. Here it comes…" Finally it seemed that Steven couldn't take it anymore. He jumped up from his chair and did a little dance.

"Told ya so! Told ya so! Told ya so! Told ya so!"

Juliana sunk into the comforts of her chair as he continued. "Yeah…so?" She noticed her fellow Gryffindors were beginning to look their way. She smiled and waved, trying to hide her embarrassment. "Steven. Sit down or sod off!" she hissed.

He sat down giggling. There was a pause. "Told ya so!"

"STEVEN!"

"Jules, did you really think that he'd be in that club?"

"Well, he loves Wizard's Chess!" Juliana protested.

"But did you think that sweet thing over there," Steven pointed at Ron who was sitting across the huge common room, "would be spending his free time with nerds who hide The Theory of Potion Making under their bed instead of porn?"

"Well…he hangs out with Hermione…"

"Ooh, that's a good point."

"No matter. I have another idea."

"And what's that?"

"DA. Harry still holds the meetings. And Defense Against the Dark Arts is my favorite and best subject! The next meeting is tomorrow night. Should be fun! And this time I know for a fact that Ron is in it."

"That's my little schemer!" Steven jokingly patted her on the head. Juliana rolled her eyes.

"I'm going to head up to the dorm and sleep. Egging on pawns to attack sure takes a lot out of you," she yawned.