Disclaimer: Hello, person who is reading this, I hope you are doing well today oO. Yes well can't have you reading my fan fiction in a bad mood now can I well let me just say that I have written fan fictions in the past, not many of them I dare say, and that I failed miserably at attempting to finish them. although for some reason I feel this one is going a lot better than I intended and that I'm actually having fun writing this. yes well, anyway, feel free to criticize this story if it is not to your liking. And those of you who do enjoy it, well, you guys rock! .

Although there is one thing that you guys must know, and that is that most of the charms and spells that will be used or mentioned throughout this story are taken, by me, from the Latin dictionary thing on the internet. You see the thing is, is that I am in a very comfortable position right now, and don't feel like getting up and walking those long 4 meters to my bedroom and skimming through the best books ever written for the names of spells. So I hope you people don't mind my laziness (hey its Saturday ok?)

Oh yes, and one more thing to prevent myself from getting sued, is that I don't own any of the characters in this story EXCEPT…for our two heroes Lainie and Jamie. And if I EVER find ANY of MY characters in ANYONE ELSES' story, without my permission, than you will wish you were never born…-- yes, I know, lame excuse of a threat but I'm serious.

This story takes place when Harry and everyone else are in school.

ENJOY!

Come As You Are

Chapter 1: Like A Dream Come True

"Lainie?..." called out a shrill voice.

"…."

"Lainie!"

Lainie Hainsworth woke with a start. Staring up at the ceiling, still clueless of what woke her up. She vaguely wondered if it had been her mother shouting out for her again. Nothing unusual I suppose, she thought to herself. Yes, this wasn't the first time that she was rudely awoken from her peaceful slumber, by her mother of course.

"Lainie, for god's sake, answer me!" yelled out Heather, her mother.

"…good morning to you too mother…" Lainie replied.

"Are you awake?"

"…" she sighed " …well what do you think?" she answered sarcastically.

"Yes, ok whatever, now come make your brother some breakfast, I have to leave now, make sure you do all the work that I laid out for you on the table, and please make your brother to do the same." called out heather.

Lainie sighed, and slowly attempted to get out of bed. And yes, as usual she ended up as a heap on the floor. The last sentence Heather had said just registered in her brain.

Guess I'll start doing that after breakfast…

Lainie had been Home-schooled for as far as she could remember. She never really knew the reason why she and her brother weren't allowed to go to public schools. She was 15 after all, and she was perfectly able to look after herself. And its not as if being able to do magic is a bad thing either. Although, whenever she had tried questioning her mother about it, Heather would simply shake her head and say that she'd learn in time.

Yeah, whatever the hell that means, she thought glumly to herself. She distantly heard her mothers Mazda speed off somewhere. She started to stand up when-

CRASH!…..

Oh gods! What on earth was that?

"Jamie?...Jamie! What have you done this time?" she called out, at the same time forcing herself to get up and run down the stairs.

When she arrived at the kitchen, she found two broken plates on the ground, hopelessly shattered beyond repair. She looked up at him, with one of those looks Jamie was far from unfamiliar with. Yes, the "I-Want-An-Explanation-Now-Or-else" look.

Jamie, Lainie's younger brother, well two years younger to be precise, was almost an exact duplicate of Lainie, except for the hair, which was shorter and uncombed, and the masculine features. But two things that just about everyone commented on when the siblings were introduced to them, were their eyes and hair. A pale shade of grey which went well with their even paler skin, and their raven coloured hair. Although,

the remarkable thing was, was that it was virtually impossible to have such, well, piercing eyes and beautiful nightshade hair, since both parents had dark eyes and were fair-haired. And then of course, the question "Are they adopted?" came up and would put them into a difficult situation.

"I-I was practising!" he said defensively.

"…practising what exactly?" she went on.

"…well…you know, that new spell I learnt yesterday from my Charms book, the one where you can lift up things from one place and put them down on another. I thought I had mastered it though…I mean, it seemed fine before, I guess I just kind of…ummm…lost my touch?" he said in a small voice.

Lainie sighed and took out her wand, seemingly from nowhere, and cast reparo on the plates. At once, they sprang back together and were neatly lying on top of each other on the floor.

"Jamie, are you sure you got the wrist movement right? You know how important that is…here, let me demonstrate" said Lainie, and pointed her wand at the now animatingly shiny plates.

"Levitas Objectus Plates!" she said firmly, with a flick of the wrist. The plates literally jumped into the air and were now following her wand around. She quietly set them back on the bench, and looked over at Jamie with a tired expression on her face.

"Well…?" she demanded. Jamie looked thunderstruck, but then broke into a smile.

"That was bloody brilliant! Wow…wicked, uh, let me try again!" he yelled out.

"Ummm, are you sure Jamie…I really don't feel like putting another set of plates together again." said Lainie wearily.

It was apparent that Jamie wasn't going to listen, and so he picked up his wand and cast the spell again on another set of plates. Lainie squeezed her eyes shut, as she heard Jamie mutter out the words of the spell, expecting the now familiar sound of plate-crashing…but it never came.

She opened one eye to see what the hell had happened. Surely her brother hadn't managed to cast a spell without mucking the whole thing up had he? She gasped as she saw the new set of plates, which were neatly placed in the cupboard, now sitting on the table.

"…hey…Jamie you did it!" she half shouted, and went to give him a hug. Jamie laughed out loud, intending on saying something else, when his tummy grumbled.

"…hey, I'm hungry…"

Lainie laughed at this, and walked over to the stove to get some traditional breakfast ready, Yes the infamous bacon and eggs, she mused to herself.

After breakfast, both brother and sister went back upstairs to clean themselves up.

Lainie was first to come down and went to do her work straight away. She sat down at the table and picked up her quill. She was just about to pick up her Transfiguration book when a letter slipped off the table. She stared at it for a moment and, being the curious person she was, she bent down and picked it up. As she studied the strange texture of the paper, she realised that the letter was addressed to her mother and that it had been opened already. She wondered for a moment, if she really should read it or not. She never usually got involved with her mothers things.

Well, it's not as if anyone's going to know that I read it now is it…? She thought, and before she could stop herself, she pulled out the piece of folded parchment and opened it.

The first thing she noticed was that…wait…no it couldn't be. That's not possible, she said to herself. Now why on earth would her mother be writing to, out of all the people who inhabited this planet, Albus Dumbledore? Wasn't he the headmaster of that school…

"Hogwarts…" she said quietly.

"Hog-what? What's that in your hands?" asked Jamie, apparently showing up out of nowhere.

Lainie looked up at him expressionless, then returned back to the paper.

"It's a letter addressed to mom, from the headmaster of Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry…"

"But why on earth would mom be writing to him?"

"Exactly what I was trying to figure out…here, I'll read it out:

Dear Mrs Hainsworth,

I have received you letter of request that Lainie and Jamie Hainsworth would like to attend to the Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry. I am pleased to inform you that your request has been accepted. The children shall be placed in the Ravenclaw house, as you requested. We (the head of department) have all agreed that your children's skills should be up to date if they have been doing their correspondence schooling on a regular basis. Term begins on the 1st of September. I have sent you a list of all necessary equipment. I hope they do well.

Yours sincerely,

Albus Dumbledore

"…wow…that's strange…" commented Jamie.

"I agree, and all these years I thought mother would never have wanted us to set foot in a public school…" Lainie said more to herself than her brother.

"I wonder what made her change her mind…but look on the bright side of it, that school is wicked! I mean, think about it Lainie, we can be away from here for pretty much the whole year, and we'll finally be able to make some real friends. If you ask me, I think it's the best thing mom could ever have done for us…the 1st of September that's next week!...awesome." said Jamie excitedly.

She knew perfectly well that Jamie was right. Hogwarts was probably one of the best Boarding Schools in the entire world. And she knew perfectly well that everyone who attended Hogwarts had had a great time there.

"Well I suppose you're right, I am quite sick of being here all the time…I think we should talk to mom about it when she gets home. Anyway, we should really be getting on to our work; if we really are going to be attending this school, then we'll have to work our hardest." said Lainie firmly.

Jamie nodded enthusiastically, and sat down right away and at the same time picking up his quill and starting his Potions essay. Lainie did the same and, and to her standards, thought she did quite well. Although, as hard as she may have been working all afternoon, one thing kept on bugging her in her mind…what exactly had made her mother change her mind?

Later on that evening, Lainie and Jamie were sitting together on the floor, silently reading just about every book they could find about Hogwarts, such as a book called: Hogwarts; A History. They both were fascinated by all the information about the school such as, how all the staircases seemed to have a mind of their own, the way they liked to change randomly. And how the ceiling of the great Hall magically took the appearance of the weather outside.

"Does that mean that we could be having dinner and suddenly it'll rain down on us?" asked Jamie in a confused tone.

"…read what is says underneath Jamie… 'no matter what the circumstances, the magic does not affect the students or staff in any way…" said Lainie wearily.

"Oh…"

They suddenly looked up as they heard their mother arrive. Jamie sprang up and ran over to the table, grabbed the letter and went rushing to the door. Lainie followed him. As Heather entered the household, she was surprised to see her children rushing up to her and mentioning something about a school. Then, it suddenly occurred to her what her children were going on about.

"…so…you found out about Hogwarts didn't you…? Yes, I thought you find out somehow." She said smiling.

"…what? So why didn't you tell us sooner? And today is Saturday…Term starts next week!" Jamie cried out.

"Yes, yes I know, clam down alright? That's why I'll be taking you to Diagon Alley tomorrow morning." said Heather with a grin on her face.

"D-Diagon All-ley? Diagon Alley! YES! Finally come around to your senses eh mom?" Jamie half yelled, sounding somewhat relieved.

Heather sighed. "Oh the way you speak to your mother sometimes…" said Heather wearily.

"Yes, whatever mother..." Lainie said and went to help her Heather with dinner.

During dinner, Heather had explained just about everything there was to explain about Hogwarts (well, everything she knew anyway). She spoke about how Hogwarts had been founded over a thousand years ago, by the greatest witches and wizards of the age; Godric Gryffindor, Helga Hufflepuff, Rowena Ravenclaw and Salazar Slytherin.

She even spoke about her own personal experiences and how very exciting they were.

They spoke well over midnight and both Lainie and Jamie bombarded her with questions, seemingly never ending. Suddenly, Heather yawned.

"I wonder what the time i-Oh Good Lord, look at the time! Its already half past one in the morning! Ok you two, get to bed straight away! I want to leave nice and early for Diagon Alley; don't want to get there when the place is packed you know…"

"Awwww mom? Please tell us more…" begged Jamie.

"Yeah mom, don't ruin the fun." Added in Lainie.

"Now now you two, you're going to be at Hogwarts on Monday. Then you'll be able to find everything out for yourselves. Now, bed…I'll be up in a minute." Said Heather firmly.

"Oh alright…" said both Lainie and Jamie at the same time, walking away sulkily.

Lainie raced Jamie up the stairs and, as usual, Jamie won. They both then went their separate ways, bidding each other goodnight. Lainie got undressed and slipped on her nightgown. She then walked over to the mirror and slowly brushed her lengthy hair. As she put the brush down, she looked up into the mirror. A thin, pale complexion was staring back at her. She continued looking back at herself and then suddenly broke into a small smile. She would be going to Hogwarts soon.

"…and it's the best thing that could ever happen to me…."

A/N: Yes, well I do hope you enjoyed that, I certainly did. I find that I'm very motivated at the moment. Haha, yes I'll stop rambling on. Oh and by the way, if any of you rock stars out there want to see pictures of Lainie or Jamie or anyone else (that I created) who will occur in this story, then just e-mail me and I'll send them to you as soon as I can. Well, the next chapter will be up very soon, I can assure you that. Sayonara!