Ch. 2
MorningRebecca woke up to a loud banging on her door. She unhurriedly got up, and opened the door and saw a girl standing there with a bushy head full of hair.
"Hi, my name is Hermione Granger, Professor McGonagall told me that I would help you around today." The girl stuck out her hand, and Rebecca shook it, and smiled hesitantly.
"I'm Rebecca Johnson."
"Oh, I know, Professor McGonagall told me all about you. You're going to start with the first years, and you don't know anything about wizards." The girl blatantly said.
"Oh, well I have to umm, get ready then I guess." Rebecca replied.
"You still have about half an hour, I just thought that I should come and wake you up. The first day can be very confusing, especially since you had no clue about your wizarding talents" Hermione said.
"Oh, well then alright, why don't you come in, and umm, I'll get ready anyways."
Hermione climbed into her room and sat at the vanity. Rebecca stared at her for a moment and then walked into the bathroom.
At BreakfastHermione led Rebecca into the huge dinning room. She was amazed, the four huge tables, the remarkable size, and the lack of a ceiling?
"Why isn't there a ceiling?" she questioned
Hermione smiled, "Oh its only charmed to reflect the weather outside."
Rebecca looked at the slightly overcast ceiling, "So its like a weather report?'
"Yeah, that's right. Now I'm supposed to take you to Professor McGonagall, she'll sort you and get your schedule." Hermione took her up to the dais where one other table sat there. Then she left and went to go sit at her table. Rebecca felt all alone as she stood up there, frightfully aware of the fact that she had chosen not to wear a robe, opting instead for a sweatshirt and jeans. There was only one person sitting at the table, he hadn't even looked at Rebecca. He was very pale, with chin length black greasy hair. He didn't look like a morning person, or someone at all that would be able to help her. So, she just stood there waiting for Professor McGonagall. She could already hear the muffled whispering behind her, knowing that the young wizards and witches had no idea why she was standing where she was, or who she was at all. The noise stopped when Professor McGonagall came up behind her. Rebecca turned around and faced the hall, and saw that most of the tables had filled up while she was standing there.
"Students of Hogwarts, this is Rebecca Johnson, she will be joining us for the rest of the year."
She turned and motioned at a stool sitting in front of the table, "Sit"
Rebecca sat and wondered what was happening. She was staring out into the hall when suddenly a hat was dropped over her head. She could now hear a wheezy old voice in her mind.
"Hmm, what a odd experience this must be for you, thrown into my world, without an explanation."
Rebecca started to get the feeling that this "person" was inside of herself.
"No, I'm not inside of you, I'm on top of you!"
"The hat?!"
"Yes, I am 'the hat' as you so fluently put it. I'm to sort you into the house you belong to. Hmm, you aren't Hufflepuff.."
"Hufflepuff?"
"Ah yes, the obedient and true. You're not of that nature. Not Slytherin either."
"Slytherin?"
"The devious and clever. Your blood would not be good enough for them. Although you could be something notable there, although I cannot tell if it would be a noble or corrupt way. Hmm, Ravenclaw would suit you well, but... Gryfindor would suit you best. So GRYFINDOR"
The last word was shouted to the rest of the hall, and one of the tables cheered feebly, and immediately turned back to their food. She smiled lackadaisically and walked down to the table, Hermione jumped up and motioned for her to sit next to her and her friends. Rebecca walked over there and smiled and the tired looking red-head and the pensive looking boy with glasses.
"Ron and Harry, this is Rebecca Johnson, Rebecca, this is Ron Weasley and Harry Potter." She paused hesitantly after saying Harry's name. Rebecca didn't know how to react.
"Hi." She said noting the odd looks passed between Harry, Ron, and Hermione. Harry cleared his throat.
"So, what year are you?"
"Oh, first year. I haven't learned anything about the wizarding world yet, including spells."
"But aren't you like our age?" Ron butted in.
"Well I am fifteen, if that's your age," she said, laughingly, "But I lived in the umm, muggle, is it?"
"Yeah" said Ron
"Well the muggle world, is where I've lived until about a month ago."
"So your parents were muggles then?" Ron asked
"Umm, no, they were... umm, skibs... I think?"
"Oh you mean squib," said Hermione "That means a person who is born without magic, to people who have magic."
"Oh, I know that, umm, Professor McGonagall told me that last night."
Hermione smiled at her and began to eat her breakfast, Ron and Harry both started talking passionately about quidditch. Rebecca was very mystified, so now she was in the Gryfindor house, what did that mean? She didn't really want to interrupt Ron and Harry with their talk about quidditch, whatever that was, it seemed to involve, a lot of things with funny names. Hermione had pulled a book out of her bag and was reading it intently, so asking her all of her questions didn't make sense either. She reached for a muffin she saw on one of the platters and began to pull it apart over her plate. She started to wonder what exactly she was supposed to do today, Professor McGonagall said something about finding someone to show her around the school, but as the hall began to empty out, Rebecca started to get nervous, was she supposed to go to her classes? How would she know where her classes where? What was a Gryfindor? And the one question she didn't think anyone could answer, Why for the love of anything holy, me? Professor McGonagall interrupted her thoughts.
"Ms. Granger," Professor McGonagall said from behind them "Would you mind taking a day off classes to show Ms. Johnson around the school?"
"Sure Professor." Hermione answered.
"Very good, here is her schedule, you could show her where these classes are, escort her to all the meals, and make sure she knows where the Gryfindor tower is, and knows the passwords."
Hermione nodded and took the piece of paper Professor McGonagall was holding. McGonagall nodded at Harry and Ron and walked back to the Professor's table.
Hermione smiled at Rebecca, and said, "It looks like you are taking all the normal first year classes and a few of the second year classes."
"Well, Professor McGonagall said that she'd try and find ways for me to catch up with my year as fast as possible."
"Well lets go, I think I can take you to all your classes before lunch, and then we'll tour around the school, and then after dinner, I'll show you where the Gryfindor tower is, and make sure you know the password." As she was saying this Hermione was standing up and pocketing Rebecca's schedule. Rebecca got up and began to trail after her.
Hermione led her up a stair case, into a boring looking class room, with an old armchair up front, and a few students writing rapidly on scrolls near the back.
"This will be your history of magic class, you have it first period. It is taught by Professor Binns. Um, don't be disturbed if he comes in through the wall or anything, he's a ghost."
"You have ghost professors?! That's really funny. How do they grade homework, can they even pick up pens, or pencils?"
"Well its more like we have one ghost professor, Professor Binns, I'm not sure how he grades homework, but he does assign a lot of essays, and they all are returned graded. He's usually a little late for class, so he isn't here right now. Umm, your next class is charms, you'll really like Professor Flitwick, if we hurry, we'll catch him before class starts."
Hermione rushed out of the class and back down the stair case they'd just come up. Rebecca hurried behind her as they went down two different hallways and ended up in a very odd classroom. There were pillows stacked everywhere and a mess of tables and chairs. A very short man was standing on a stack of books near the front and flicking his wand at various items.
"Ah, Hermione, come in! I'm just tidying up before my first class." A table straightened its self back into the row, and two chairs quickly followed. "Teaching flying charms again this week, and who do we have here?" Professor Flitwick climbed down the stack of books and walked over to Rebecca.
"Hello there, you're the new student girl aren't you, the one that was sorted this morning."
"Yes, My name is Rebecca," She responded, "I'm going to be taking first year charms with you."
"You look a bit tall to be a first year" Professor Flitwick wheezed.
"Oh that's because I'm fifteen, a bit old to be a first year too."
"Ah, yes I remember now, you'll be taking second year charms with me starting in about four months as well then, yes?"
"Probably."
"Well we have to go," Hermione interrupted, "She still has to meet all her other teachers, and be shown around the school. Bye Professor!" Hermione grabbed Rebecca's arm and dragged her out.
"We still have to meet, Snape, but we'll save him for later, you've met McGonagall, so I guess we can skip her. Um, you have herbology, you should meet Professor Sprout, and she is the head of the Hufflepuff house." Hermione rambled on about Rebecca's classes while leading her around the school. They went to the glasshouses and watched the third year herbology work with blood sucking petunias. They went to Hagrid's hut and had tea with him before his class. They were heading back to the school for lunch when they met up with Ron and Harry heading back from double potions with the Slytherin.
"Snape is in a miserable mood today, yelled at everyone for not putting in the right amount of slivered gecko's skin, even his precious Slytherins." Ron complained.
"A pinch of something is a rather wide measurement for a potion." Harry put in, "Its really his fault."
"You should of seen Goyle though, he put in a handful, and the entire table went up in turquoise flames. Snape gave him a week's worth of detentions. The look on his face was priceless! He just stood there while his robes started to burn with this expression of complete stupidity!" Ron laughed.
"Oh but big surprise, the only person he didn't yell at was Draco." Harry said as they walked into the lunchroom.
"Yeah, even though, he didn't do it right either, his cauldron was a nice shade of yellow" said another boy who walked up, "Hermione you're lucky you didn't have to go to class today, we must lost 50 points for Gryfindor in just that period."
Hermione smiled, "Rebecca this is Seamus Finnigan. What were you guys making?"
"Ha, you'll never believe this, we were making a calming potion!" Seamus laughed.
A very distraught boy with a pudgy face walked up to the group and sighed.
"Neville, what's wrong?" Hermione asked.
"I got a week of detention with Snape and Goyle. I put in too much of all the ingredients and my cauldron boiled over and ate through the floor." Neville sighed again and sat down at the end of the Gryfindor table. Hermione, Rebecca, Harry, Ron, and Seamus sat around him.
"Where's Dean?" asked Hermione.
"Oh he had an essay for Binn's class he's finishing in the library." Seamus replied. "So, Rebecca why'd you transfer in now, instead of the beginning of the year?"
"Um, well, I wasn't going to go a wizarding school, I was all set to go muggle school. But then, um," Rebecca fiddled with her fork and laughed nervously, "Yeah, it was decided that I should go here just like a week ago."
"Oh" Seamus said.
"Anyways," said Hermione changing the subject, "Do you guys think it would be safe to go visit Snape's class, he's the only teacher Rebecca hasn't met yet that she needs too."
"Definitely not!" Said Ron, "He might just chop you up and use you in a potion, he's in that bad of a mood."
"Well, we have to go see him anyways. So Rebecca, lets go, we'll make quick."
End of Chapter 2... review!!