Finally Arriving

Disclaimer: See chapter 1

The world changed. I'm not kidding; never mind the heavenly chorus that had suddenly struck up, the weather outside turned from a clear but bloody freezing night to a storm like I'd never seen before. The majority of the students seemed to freeze on the spot as well, it was very disturbing; I tried waving my hand in front of Laidalien's face but there wasn't any response. I would have tried waking her up some other way but it was about then that I noticed that about twenty different people had suddenly appeared in the Hall out of nowhere, all girls about my age too. There seemed something wrong with them, even from such a distance I could tell that; as could Lavender and Parvati, thankfully unfrozen, it seemed. They both stood up, wands at the ready, and looked at me.

"What's goin' on?" I wish I'd been told about stuff like this before coming here, I might have changed my mind and spent the rest of my school days in St Mungos; it might have been more peaceful.

"Sues. They're always at their worst now, don't know why. See Harry up there?" Lavender pointed somewhere further up the table, I looked but I couldn't pick him out of the crowd; might have been the skinny black-haired kid but I wouldn't place any money on it.

"Errm, yeah?" I'd no doubt find out who he was later.

"Well, most of them always seem to head straight for him. Some go over to the Slytherin table but we let them deal with those ones – we've got enough to cope with. As it is they freeze most people; it's almost as if they stop them from existing or getting in their way, and the few of us left have to deal with them."

Great, I've been in school an hour and I've been insulted, attacked and now I get to watch my friends attack girls with apparent superpowers. What could be more fun than that?

"Could use a hand if you don't mind, Jane, you dealt with that one on the train well enough." Parvati was smiling; she must have seen the expression of sheer dread on my face. "Don't worry, we wait till they've been sorted and sat down and then just stun them – it's easy enough."

I'm sure it is; which is why the remaining unfrozen students look so happy to be here. "Dow the other girls notice what you're d-doing?" That one on the train looked thick, but surely no one could be that dumb, could they?

"Nope."

Apparently they could. Fair enough, I wasn't about to complain about it.

"Okay then, so what do I do?" Preferably sit here and watch, but I doubted that would be happening any time soon.

"Well, first we need better seats, come on." Parvati helped me up, probably seeing my discomfort or possibly hearing my back and knees click their disapproval at being moved. She led me down the table to where Lavender had pointed before and sat down opposite three still students my age – two boys and a girl, one of the boys was actually the black haired kid I'd picked out earlier. "This is Harry, Hermione and Ron." She pointed to each of them in turn, and I waved, as much good that it did. "I'll introduce you to them better when they wake up."

Lavender took a seat next to me and immediately looked up at the staff table, a resigned look on her face. I followed her gaze and saw that Dumbledore had stood up. This in itself wouldn't have worried me; it was the slackened expression that unsettled me - I'd met him earlier in the summer and there was no way he looked like that normally.

"Students! If I could have your attention for a moment please?" His voice was strange too, holding an echo in it that wasn't anything to do with the grand acoustics of the hall. What was really creepy though was the way every head, of every frozen student and staff member, turned slowly to face the Headmaster. It made the hairs on the back of my neck stand up.

I looked briefly at the girls that had appeared in the Hall earlier; they seemed unaffected by the strange behaviour of everyone present and in fact seemed rather oblivious to everything, even the other girls standing with them.

"I have the great pleasure to welcome to the school/This year Hogwarts participated in an exch/In order to foster good relations with the great land of/ferred into the sixth year/moved forwards a year because of/due to unforeseen circumstances we had to/ great tragedy and comes here from an area of great conflic/to learn our humble ways..." It went on for quite a while afterwards but I stopped listening after that. It was much like flicking through stations on the Wizarding Wireless Network, except Dumbledore was actually speaking like that – it had to be the Sues causing it.

As odd as it was, it did give me a chance to look around the Hall and spot a few more awake people. Three boys, one oddly familiar, waved at me from the top end of the table – I wondered briefly why they hadn't come down to join us, there was probably a reason though. Two of the female Professors looked on in boredom, not even taking notice of us students and four or five of the Slytherins remained awake. One of the lads gave us a thumbs up; I waved back, as you do and wondered about this supposed inter-house rivalry. Something to ask Lavender and Parvati about later.

Dumbledore did finish eventually though, mid-sentence, and McGonagall took over. For a minute I thought things had returned to normal as she opened up her list of names again and stood silently – who knows what she was waiting for. I noticed that Lavender had pulled out a piece of parchment and a quill, and was actually drawing up a quick table.

"What's that for?" I did toss about the possibility that she'd been possessed again like she had on the train but it didn't work really; then she'd been frozen like the others.

"We've got a bet on with the Slytherins, about who'll get the most this year. Need to keep a close tally as I've got a couple of Galleons riding on us." Ah, of course. I really should have guessed but the gambling's a bit more life and death in hospital. I saw that the Gryffindor column already had one tally stroke in it – Krystabella.

"How'd ya know she was a Gryffindor?" I did wonder as she wasn't wearing a uniform at the time.

"She asked after Harry, Slytherin Sues don't usually start asking after Harry until half term."

"Oh." I was extremely glad in that moment that my name wasn't Harry Potter.

Some silent, invisible cue must have made itself known to McGonagall as she suddenly started to call out names. Everyone still awake in the Hall became more alert at this and focused their attention, not on the Professor, but on the girls waiting silently in line.

"Mizaka Freemaiden!" Had the order she was calling them in suddenly changed? I could have sworn she did things by last name when I was being sorted, ah well.

This one was painful to look at, her hair was like... well it look like a waterfall made of gold had been attached to her head, which certainly put a strain on your eyes I can tell you. Speaking of eyes, when she turned towards us to sit on the stool, I caught a glimpse of hers. When I was a bab, I broke a blue glass vase of my mum's – the splinters on the floor looked exactly like what was in place of the girl's eyes. It made me feel sick to even think about them.

The Hat didn't seem to happy about being put on this Mizaka's head and even though it had insulted me earlier, I couldn't help but feel sorry for it. It was only on there for a second though before it screamed out 'Gryffindor'. The girl stood up and started to glide over to our table, I wondered how she did it actually, but then again I couldn't be sure whether she actually had feet under her long, bright red robes, I'd never seen any. As she came closer, I could actually hear the slight rumbling the foam at the bottom of her hair was making and the glassy tinkling her eyes made as she moved.

'Don't attack until you can see the whites of their eyes' I remembered hearing once; good advice as you'd be less likely to miss. Only problem was, this girl's eyes didn't have any whites.

She made her way over to us, not taking a blind bit of notice of me or the other two, and sat down next to the frozen Trio. That's where things got stranger.

Those three suddenly seemed to come to life, clapping and cheering like the students had when the first years had been Sorted. Only... their movements were all jerky, as if they were puppets at the hands of a rather inept master. It was creepy to watch.

The girl, Mizaka, smiled. "Hi there!" It sounded as if she'd swallowed a balloon or seven, her voice was that high. The girl out of the three in front of me, Hermione I think it was, waved and mouthed something silently – apparently it was some form of communication, or at least Mizaka took it to be so as she smiled wider in response. "Pleased to meet you 'Mione! I'm Mizaka Jerenali Pirfact Freemaiden, but you can call me Zaka!" She shouted everything, I feared that if we didn't get rid of her soon, I'd spend the rest of my life as deaf as a post.

Hermione then turned and pointed to the boys either side of her and mouthed what was probably an introduction. The stupid Sue then squeaked her name at each of them, rather redundantly and they waved and mouthed back. I was wondering when we'd be able to dispose of Mizaka; I could truly see now why Lavender and Parvati had spoke of the Sues in the way they did – this one in front of me was bloody annoying.

Seem she noticed us glaring at her though, although to be fair she did mistake it for something akin to awestruck wonder, and turned her attention to us. Or rather, the wand in Parvati's hand that was pointed directly at her forehead.

"What do you think you're doi-"

"Stupefy!"

The girl collapsed mid-sentence, sliding from her seat onto the floor. Parvati watched her with no small amount of satisfaction on her face, while Lavender just sighed. I looked to see what the reaction of the Trio opposite me would be, but they seemed to have reset and were facing the front of the Hall again, frozen as ever.

"One down, two dozen or so to go." Lavender said, putting a mark in the Gryffindor column.

It was going to be a long night...