Hello everybody. I've got bad news and good news. The bad news is that, obviously, I didn't manage to get Chapter one up before we left (holds up garbage can lid to shield oneself from flying fruit) The good news is that, though I've taken an extra day or two (not counting the days that I've left it sit on my dad's laptop, not transfering it to my computer because I'm lazy), I've got a slightly longer chapter up. I'm sorryfor the wait. But, if it makes you feel any better, the chapter is finished and finally up, so enjoy.
It's a Twin Thing:
Chapter One
"Mum! Hurry up! I don't want to be late!" cried a girl with long, dark brown hair.
"Just a minute, Alicia. We'll leave as soon as I put my earrings in. Oh, there goes the back!"
The scene occurring before her would have been quite humorous if Alicia Spinnet weren't in such a hurry. And to make things worse, her mother had dropped the back of her earring. Yes, her mother had dropped her silver back onto the white rug.
Alicia shook her head and sighed. She was supposed to be on the Hogwarts Express for her first year at Hogwarts by 11:00. How was she to do that if her mother wouldn't be ready to go until 11:30?
"Alicia, dear, would you go get your brother and sister for me. Tell them it's time to go." questioned her mother from the floor.
Relieved to have something to do, Alicia bounded up the stairs two at a time. She found her sister's room and knocked on the door. "Dani! Mom says it's time to go!"
"I'll be right out!" Danielle replied.
Alicia continued down to her brother, Ryan's room. The door was wide open and Alicia stuck her head in to see him lying on his bed, watching his television. Alicia's father was a muggle, so they had the best of both worlds in their home. "Ryan, come on! It's time to go!"
She groaned with annoyance as her brother raised a hand in acknowledgement, but took his good old time getting up and moving. However, she couldn't help but laugh. His hair was a tousled mess! "Well, I'll be down in the car. Hurry up!"
As she sprinted down the hall, she collided with her sister. Alicia would be a perfect look-a-like of Dani if it weren't for their hair. Her hair was straight and smooth, while Dani's was curly and soft. They got along well, despite the three year difference in their age.
And then there was Ryan. At seventeen years old, he was entering his last year at Hogwarts.
As they reached the bottom of the steps, they were ushered out the door by both their mother and father. They piled into the car and began making their way to King's Cross Station. They each fetched a trolley, and made their way onto the platform.
Alicia wasn't sure she liked the idea of pushing a trolley. It was big, and heavy, and hard to steer. She was swerving all over the place.
She looked around the station for any signs of her read-headed friends, which only resulted in her trolley nearly tipping over.
"Oh, I'm sorry, Mandrake. These things are so heavy." she apologized to her handsome Tawny owl. He hooted in understanding, and closed his eyes.
'Thank goodness!' Alicia thought as she looked up to see the barrier between platforms nine and ten. It was a good thing that she was able to go through it, because there was no way her cart was stopping in time to avoid it.
In the end, however, it made no difference. She couldn't have been on the platform for more than two seconds before colliding with another trolley anyway. Mandrake hooted in panic.
The skinny dark skinned girl immediately rushed to pick up her fallen things, her curly black hair falling in her face, covering her dark eyes. Alicia rushed toward her things as well.
"I'm so sorry! I wasn't looking where I was going."
The girl waved off her apology. "It was my fault, too. These things are so hard to handle" She cracked a friendly smile. "I'm Angelina Johnson. Are you going into your first year too?"
Alicia tucked a strand of her long brown hair behind her ear. "Yeah. I'm Alicia Spinnet. Nice to meet you."
As Alicia piled the last of her things back onto her trolley, something caught her eye.
That something just happened to be a rather large group of red-headed witches and wizards. She would recognize the Weasleys anywhere.
"So, Alicia, do you want to sit with me on the train?" Angelina questioned.
Alicia was a bit surprised. She hadn't expected to make a friend so quick. "Sure. As long as you don't mind if some of my friends sit with us too."
"No problem. So, who are your friends?"
As if on cue, a voice sounded out behind them.
"Hey, Leesh!"
"Come on!"
"The train's going to leave any minute!"
"You don't want to miss it!"
Ok, make that two voices. The unfortunate, yet funny part of this is that Angelina didn't realize that there was more than one person standing behind her. She jumped a bit at the sudden sound. That, however, was nothing compared to the little shriek she gave when she spun around.
Alicia gave them a hard look. "Do you guys have to do that? You're going to give somebody a heart attack."
Angelina stared open-mouthed at them for a moment. She looked at Fred first, taking in his messy, fiery red hair, intense blue eyes, and the numerous freckles scattered around his face. Then she turned to George and took in the exact same thing.
Alicia glared at her friends once more before introducing them. "Guys, this is Angelina Johnson. I... 'bumped into her'... here on the platform. Angelina, these are my best friends, Fred and George Weasley. They're twins."
Angelina sighed. "That was my first guess. The other was that I was beginning to hallucinate."
"If only you were," laughed Alicia. She looked up and caught a glance of the clock. "We should probably go. We only have five minutes to get on the train."
After a quick good-bye to their families, they hustled to get their trunks on the train before it left.
Alicia and Angelina managed to wrestle their trunks onto the train and into a compartment with much effort. They were followed by the twins. They had each grabbed one handle of each trunk, and were walking with ease into the compartment.
They dropped George's trunk completely and swung Fred's trunk into the space above the seats first. They picked up the tattered, second hand trunk on the floor next, and swung that up as well.
Angelina watched in awe as they worked in harmony without words. "How do they do that?" She asked her new friend.
Alicia looked up at her from where she was reading one of her school books. "Do what?"
Angelina pointed to the trunks above their head.
"Oh, that. I don't really know. I guess it's a twin thing."
It didn't take long for the twins to get Angelina wrapped up in a conversation of quidditch.
It also didn't take long for a disturbance to come to the compartment. Two voices sounded out loud and clear outside of the compartment.
"Will you just leave me alone?" cried an exasperated voice.
"Will you just talk to me?" replied a mocking voice.
The door to their compartment slid open to reveal a short girl with shoulder length blonde hair and piercing blue eyes. When she spoke, her voice was small and rushed. "Do you mind if I sit in here?"
"Do you mind if I sit in here too?" asked another voice. The mocking boy they had heard was dark skinned and wore his hair in dreadlocks.
"Sure. Come on in," offered Alicia a little cautiously.
"I'm Lee Jordan"
"My name's Katie Bell."
They announced at the same time.
Alicia gave them a friendly smile, and introduced herself and her friends.
The talk of Quidditch started up again, with Lee as it's new member, and Alicia throwing her occasional two cents in as well.
They all stopped when Katie made the mistake of asking, "What's Quidditch?"
Fred, George, and Lee stared at her like she was nuts. Her pale cheeks began to go red and she said, "I'm sorry. I'm muggleborn, and I've never heard of it before!"
Angelina put a hand on her shoulder. "Don't worry. It's not as big of a deal as they make it sound," she chuckled. "Quidditch is the wizarding sport, and it's played on broomsticks in the air. Now, there are three balls. The Quaffle is a big red ball that you have to throw through the other team's hoops. The Quaffle is handled by two types of players. The three chasers are the people who try and steal and throw the quaffle. The keeper is the person who guards the hoops from the other team.
"There are two smaller black balls called Bludgers. They fly around the field attempting to knock people off their brooms. That's where the beaters come in. There are two beaters who protect their team from the bludgers with small bats. They also try to make life difficult for the other team.
"The last and most important ball is the Golden Snitch. It's really tiny and hard to see. The seeker of the team has to find and catch the Golden Snitch. When he does, the game is over, and the team that caught it gets awarded an additional 150 points."
By the time they reached Hogsmeade's station, Katie had been hypnotized enough to be a pro before she even got on a broom. And how ecstatic she was that her torture had ended.
When they stepped off the train and into the wild roar of the crowd, they were engulfed by students running this way and that, calling for their friends and rushing every which way.
As Katie was about to stop and ask a friendly looking fourth year girl where they were supposed to be, a loud voice boomed out from above the crowd.
"Firs' years! Firs' years over here!"
The group followed the voice to its owner, who just happened to be a giant of a man named Hagrid.
"Okay, now, four to a boat. Come on."
"George and I will go by ourselves."
"Yeah, I see a couple of nasty looking Slytherin prospect's in the next boat that look like they could use some cheering up."
And with identical smiles of innocence, they headed toward another boat; skipping for extra effect.
Alicia sighed and rolled her eyes.
Lee looked up. "What was that about?"
She shook her head. "Oh, it's nothing. It's just that when the twins give those innocent looks, it always means that they are up to no good." Then her eyes lighted up.
"You see how annoyed those two look?" she asked, pointing to the boys in Fred and George's boat. Lee nodded his head.
Alicia giggled a bit. "Well, let's just say that I would bet my life that they will look ten times more annoyed, and ten times more colorful when they get off at the other side."
Angelina gave a half-hearted laugh which died down quickly, and she nervously began biting her fingernails. She ran a hand through her black curls and sighed deeply.
Lee turned to her. "What's wrong with you?"
She shook her head and said nothing.
"She's nervous about the sorting, and I know I am, too."
All eyes turned to Katie when she spoke, and Lee laughed out loud.
Her ice blue eyes were burning with hate when she looked at him. If looks could kill, Katie would have Lee down and dead in a matter of seconds.
"You can honestly tell me that you're not worried about anything?" she hollered at him.
"Well, I –" he made a fetal attempt to save himself.
"You mean to say that you haven't, at any point, gotten nervous?"
"That's not what –" his broad smile was decreasing with every second.
"I've only known you for a few hours, and I already hate you." She crossed her arms across her chest and huffed out an annoyed breath.
Lee's eyes opened wide in surprise for a second before he hung his head low, obviously stung by Katie's last, harsh comment.
The four of them sat in an uncomfortable silence for the rest of the boat ride, Lee only coming out of his trance when the boat they were riding in banged into the shore, jolting them all forward.
Alicia looked over to the twins' boat just in time to see their boat hit land as well. They threw themselves forward onto what must have been the greasy haired boys that they boarded with when the boat jolted. They stood up and waved to her. She saw George jerk his head toward the boat where the boys were just standing up.
She had to grab Angelina's arm to hold her composure. Standing there, in plain sight of everyone, were two boys with dark, cold eyes and cold scowls to match. Finally, to top it all off, hair that was scented like... flowers –and looked like them too!
Sprouting from the top of their heads were daisies, roses, lilies, and some other well known flowers in replace of their normally greasy hair. The most unusual thing of all in this humorous situation was that, somehow, Fred and George had prevented the victims from being able to see this unfortunate situation that was right on top of their heads.
Shaking her head and running to catch up with the red-headed mischief makers, one thought flashed through her head. 'This is definitely going to be an interesting year!'
Well, there you have it! The first official chapter to IT'S A TWIN THING. Please R&R! Hope you liked it, and I'll try to have chapter two up soon!
Sincerely,
CC57