"Damn, he was leaning in so close I thought he was gonna kiss you." Said Haylie as Jeremy walked away, still almost in a trance. "What happened? When he looked at you he…well…disappeared, in a way. But he was still there. I dunno…"
"You were there. As a horse. We all were." Lexie replied, her voice uncommonly quiet.
"And…"
"He saw himself. For the first time." She knew Haylie would understand. "So he was really that close?"
"Yup." Answered Haylie with a hint of jealousy.
That familiar sparkle entered Lexie's eyes and she grinned. "Too bad. He missed out." She replied. They both giggled, the tense moment gone, and they sat down together on one of the couches next to a tall, cute, brown-haired boy. By this time more people had come in, complaining about trick steps or tricks played on them by Peeves, the resident poltergeist.
The boy looked at them and asked, "What? Did I miss something? I'm lost."
"Hi, Lost, nice to meet you. I'm Haylie. And Little Ms. Blondie over here is Lexie," she said, holding out her hand and smirking innocently at him.
"No-wait-what? Ok, let's start over. My name is J.T."
"All right then; nice to meet you, J.T." Said Haylie laughingly.
More people were joining the introductions now. There was a trio of teenagers, 2 boys and a girl, all about 15 years old. One of the boys, who had black hair, bright green eyes and round glasses, was holding the hand of the girl, who had plain brown hair and a countenance that implied extreme intelligence. The other boy was tall and lanky, with bright red hair, a long nose, and numerous freckles. Also in the room was a tall, blonde guy of about 16 or 17 wearing board shorts, a shorter young Latina girl with brown, wavy hair, and a youthful boy with blue eyes and medium-length mouse-brown hair. Everybody was quiet, not sure what to say. Suddenly Jeremy came back from the dormitories, finally out of his daze.
"So…how we all doing?" Silence. The silence was so absurdly long that Lexie began to laugh. The smothered giggles were punctuated by a small snort as Lexie toppled over and leaned on Haylie for support. The tense silence broke, and everybody else started laughing, too. "Well…I'm Jeremy." He said, once the laughter had died down a little.
Haylie, Lexie, and J.T. introduced themselves. So did the rest. The blond guy was Maclyn, the couple was Harry and Hermione, and the redhead was Ron. Jordan was the blue eyed kid.
Last came the Latina girl.
"My name is Maria." Lexie and Haylie were in shock-they knew Maria!
"Maria!" shouted Haylie.
"Haylie!" answered Maria.
"Lexie!" shouted Lexie. "Oh, right, that's me…" Everybody in the room laughed.
"How good to see you! How did we not recognize you before? I feel so stupid now…"
"Well, I think we're even, because I didn't recognize you either."
Jordan spoke up. "In the words of King Theoden of Rohan, 'it cannot be doubted that we witness the meeting of dear friends.'"
"Oh, you like Lord of the Rings, too? We LOVE Lord of the Rings." Said Haylie, motioning to Lexie and Maria, who both nodded vigorously.
"Yeah, I'm an obsessor. I like Harry Potter, too."
Harry, Hermione, and Ron jumped up, looking confused.
"You know Harry?" Asked Hermione suspiciously, grabbing Harry tightly by the arm as if she thought someone was going to pick him off with sniper fire.
"Sure." Said Maria, shrugging her shoulders. "Almost everybody in the world has heard of him. Of all three of you, in fact." That seemed to scare them even more; all their eyes widened at once, and they grouped closer together, sitting back down slowly and looking around, as if for hidden cameras-never mind the fact that electronic (Muggle-made) bugs don't work inside Hogwarts.
"Have you ever heard of J.K. Rowling?" Lexie asked the apprehensive trio. Harry and Ron stared blankly at her. Hermione looked at the ceiling.
"This," said Maria slowly, "is going to take a while."