Jolts and Feelings
" Oh boy. Its gonna be a long ride!" thought Harry as he sat in the car behind Uncle Vernon who seemed as usual in his uttermost nasty mood and he did not seem happy about having to send Harry off to the station. " Listen boy, I know your weirdo people from your weird mad cow school have come and warned me. Don't think I am afraid of those
p people! You better not be seen with your whatever-it-is stick and I am warning you!" said Uncle Vernon who was obviously trying to put up a brave front. " Yeah yeah. Whatever. Loser!" murmured harry rejoicing in the fact of the existence of his uncle's fear. The ride seemed really long and dreadful and Harry started to close his eyes when suddenly the car jerked. " Boy! Out! Out! Get your butt outta my car. Shoo! Make sure I don't see you till next summer" said Uncle Vernon who was missing the fact that his nephew had already long gone off from his car not wanting to stay and listen to his crap.
Harry walked towards platform 9 ¾ and did his usual fast walk in. There he saw it. His wonderful and his long missed train. The only thing he could look forward to see. It had been long since he heard from ron or hermione. Those two had not been in contact for him ever since both their families went off for some of their own holiday plans. Harry dragged himself up the train and plotted himself on the available seat he could find. He was dreading the day he had to see face to face with the fact of Ron and Hermione were not with him. Then suddenly someone entered his section. " Neville! Oh good! I thought I was in the wrong world or something. Finally!" said harry with total gratefulness to see the pleasant and welcoming face of cute chubby Neville.
"Oh hello harry! Nice to see you again. I saw someone new today on the train. She looked too old to be a first year though. Maybe she's someone's daughter? Who knows?" said blur Neville with his usual disconnectedness.
" New girl huh? Wouldn't hurt to make new friends would it? Oh well. We shall just have to wait or –" and harry stopped in the middle of the conversation. Infront of him at the door stood a unique yet intriguing girl in Hogwarts robes standing right in front of him. She looked like a cross between a Spanish girl and an English girl. Almost like an Indian . Her long dark brown hair struck him as it mesmerized him and her black eyes penetrated right through him. He had never felt that way before.
" Erm… Sorry. You don't mind me here do you? I tried everywhere else. It was like totally packed and I was like so pissed you know!" said the girl with an obvious American accent but yet cute one.
" Oh. Er No problem I guess. I am Harry. And you are..?"
"Oh I'm Lara. Lara Lewinski. Nice to meet the great the-one-who-stumped-voldy guy. Hehe"
" haha. Finally someone who's not afraid of him" said Harry in extreme surprise that Lara could speak so calmly about Voldemort yet glad.
Lara made herself at home and sat next to Harry which gave him a sense of fear, a weird kind of fear like he was attracted to her or something.
"So what year are you in? First? Second? "
"Nope! Duh! Look at me. Do I look like a kid? No! I am in 6th year. Just joined because I transferred out of Beauxbaton and all. I could not take another moment there. Hogwarts seems so much better…" and Lara rambled on about all her various comments but Harry just looked at her talking and chatting away and she looked so adorable to him, she looked too cute that he got engrossed into looking at her instead of paying attention to what she had to say.
" er. Harry? Are you even listening? Why are you looking at her like that?" asked curious Neville in a real innocent tone because Neville had still not really matured.
"So. Yeah. Tell me about yourself? You're like Harry potter you know! The Guy who saves the day kinda thing. I mean surely you gotta be interesting right?" Lara asked and it amazed Harry how only she could question the personality of Harry and yet sound so right and he really felt like he wanted to know her more. He just stared at her babbling while thinking about her and zoning out from what he really was seeing.
"Who's that guy there? The one with the whole black outfit going?" asked Lara who obviously seemed to be curious in almost everything she saw.
"That's Snape. You don't want to be on his bad side. I have been for 5 years and he utterly despises me. But honestly I don't care. He is not someone I would want to know anyway" sneered Harry looking at Snape with utter disgust.
Lara gulped a little but something about Lara reminded Harry about Snape and he wished it wasn't like that. He was slowing drifting away into his own thoughts mesmerizing himself with the possibilities of Lara being related to Snape then suddenly…
"Ladies and Gentlemen! Welcome back to another year at Hogwarts! Seeing many familiar faces around here" said Dumbledore giving a small wink to Harry, who was slightly taken aback, and continued. " This year is definitely going to be one unique one. We have a new addition to our 6th Years family and she is Lara Lewenski and we have grouped her into Gryffindor…" and his words were drowned by loud and alarming boom of cheers from the Gryffindors who were all thrilled with the fact that there was someone else to boost the power of the Gryffindor spirit! "So as I was saying.. AHEM AHEM… don't get carried away gryffindors, I hope you would make Lara feel at home as well as the other new additions to our family, the first years. And ah ah, yes yes before I forget, let me introduce our new Head Boys and Girls. This year there is a change in plans because those who were nominated have unfortunately… yes very sadly refused to take up their respective positions, thus the positions have been passed down to 2 of our very capable and eligible Sixth Year prefects. They have agreed to take up their roles and without further ado , Ronald Weasley and Hermione Granger!" boomed Dumbledore with visible joy in his eyes.
Harry spit out his pumpkin juice and stared incredulously at the Teachers' table seeing Ron and Hermione beaming with pride standing next to each other waving happily to him. " So that's where they have been! Busy deciding to be the Head prefects. Stupid! And they didn't tell anything about that to me! How could they!" murmured harry under his breath with a note of irritance. But he still joined in with the audible outburst of cheers from the Gryffindor table and everyone was screaming out Ron's and Hermione's names with so much energy! But as Harry turned towards the Slytherin table, Malfoy and his pals did not seem as delighted over the sudden change of plans and were brooding and sulking very openly along with the other Slytherins.
"Okay. May the feast Begin" Dumbledore said and with a flick of his finger appeared all the scrumptious food on everyone's plates and Lara let out an audible gasp and apparently everyone turned their attention to her.
"Okay. Hogwarts is so cool. I can't believe you can even complain about it Harry? Gosh. Wonder what else there is for me to gasp over? Is there anything to not like here?" asked Lara and Harry gave a genuine smile to her obviously overwhelmed with adoration for her ditzyness.
"Hey Harry! Nice to see you. Sorry we didn't tell you anything about it. It all was really sudden," said Hermione honestly looking really nervous to what Harry was going to say.
But Harry was calm and just said " No problems. I did have Lara for company. Yeah she's the new girl Ron. No need to look so blur!" joked Harry. Ron shut his widely opened mouth and just looked at Hermione who looked equally clueless about how Lara became such close friends with Harry.
"Nice to meet you guys. Heard about you two. Harry told me about you. Hope you guys won't mind me hanging out with you because Harry's like about the only friend I have made so far so … I hope you guys understand… and erm yeah" mumbled Lara who gave this whole oh-so-cute-look which totally bought them over and Hermione and Ron were looking at each other raising their eyebrows cheekily.
"Don't worry Lara, Ron and I are fine with it. Its nice to know new people isn't it?" Hermione crapped on along with Lara who were both engrossed in their own girls conversation.
"I guess its just you and me now. So how was Lara for company eh? She's quite pretty you know. What is she? A Spanish girl? Indian? You two seem pretty close for starters… anything sparked up between you guys?" teased Ron with a cheeky grin on his face.
"Ron, please. I have had enough of girls for now. Cho was like a horrible experience. And I am not ready for another one. Yeah she's Indian and you know something she honestly reminds me of Snape. It freaks me to think that they could actually be related" said Harry with a petrified look.
"Maybe they are, who knows? The world's real small you know. Just hope not. Its not gonna be nice to know someone you know as a friend is Snape's relative"
"Yeah! Gross thought. And you know since we have the beaters' spots open I offered to Lara. She said okay you know? She has won in Quidditch competitions. She's not all that stupid. She's really intelligent, all rounded actually. Cool girl"
"Whatever Harry. It seems to me that you're adoring her and its quite obvious when you look at her with your dreamy eyes. Idiot please learn how to be less obvious. She's gonna find out"
"I do not! Don't say nonsense. I don't adore her of any sort" said Harry with a little bit of anger but something inside of him was telling him that he might not even know whether what he said was true. But he definitely ignored that unthinkable feeling. Maybe he was starting to like this new girl Lara. They did have some things in common and he did like her way of behaving and he even secretly thought she was cute! So maybe this sparks a new beginning for him but he just tried not to think about it and carried on with Ron to his lessons ignoring his thoughts floating at the back of his head.
"I expect a higher standard from all of you. And those who cannot keep up will be out of my class. Those who are too slow or too thick in the brain to understand would be not attended to. Now please carry on with your assignment. The potion you're gonna make is known as the Emotions Potion which will let people express their feelings without any hesitation…" rambled on Snape with that usual look of loath at Harry who was too used to it to even bother.
"You know, he's really freaky. Does he always wear black? Its not gonna help him with the ladies if he doesn't change his sense of style soon. Gosh. What a weirdo" whispered Lara in Harry's ear who felt really uneasy in his stomach. The same exact feeling he felt the day before.
His infatuation was starting to grow very fast as he kept staring at her during lunch, between breaks, classes, and even when she was talking with Hermione. All the time he had his eyes on her. Was he falling in love? Or was he just dreaming away? He was just too unsure of his own emotions. Each time he saw her, he felt like putting his hands on her hair and stroking it to feel that smoothness right in his own fingers.
Ron snapped his finger in front of Harry making him snap out of his thoughts.
"Harry's in love… Harry's in love… Harry's in love" said Ron in a sing-song tone which totally irritated Harry.
"You better shut up I tell you. Before I lose it and punch your face. I have a lot of repressed anger so you better watch out!" whispered Harry into Ron's ears elbowing Ron in the ribs.
" Yeah yeah. That's what you keep telling me. But you know, you should stop staring at her before someone thinks you're some maniac or something. Good luck mate. You're gonna need it if you wanna get together with her," said Ron and he got back to his potion making process which was going horribly with purplish smoke emitting out of it leaving Harry speechless.