Hi and thanks for coming back and reading Chapter2! For those three that reviewed already: Good for you! For those tha haven't: You know you want to! Any feedback is great!
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"Professor Slughorn?" Ginny approached the teacher's desk.
"Oh, yes. Geneva. If I recall you have a very good Bat Bogey Hex." The Professor smiled.
"This is Caroline Greenwood. She's new to the school and I'd like to work with her so I can show her how things work."
"Of course, of course!" Slughorn smiled jovially. "Anything for you Geneva."
"Thank you, sir." Cady smiled back.
"Ahh! An American!" Slughorn rubbed his hands together. " Some of my best students went to America. Rufus Owlback joined the Salem Warlock committee in 1967, he sends me chocolates on Halloween, and Joan Irdah…."
"Professor…" Ginny prompted. "You need to start the lesson."
"Of course. Of course. Thank you Geneva, my girl." Slughorn hurried to the front of the dungeon classroom.
"He's a little weird." Cady laughed.
"He's obsessed about his past students." Ginny smiled. "He's a good teacher, though."
"I can guess."
"All right, today we'll be making a polyjuice potion." Slughorn's voice boomed above the hubbub of student's chatter.
Ginny laughed quietly behind her caldron.
"What's so funny?" Cady grinned.
"Harry told me about his, my brother's and Hermione's experience with a polyjuice potion." Ginny chuckled. "Hermione ended up being a cat."
"A cat? But polyjuice is only used for human transformations."
"She made the mistake of adding a cat hair instead of a human hair. She stayed as a cat for about two weeks."
"What were they trying to do?" Cady grinned at the older kids antics.
"Harry wanted to get Draco Malfoy to confess that he was the heir of Slytherin. Didn't work too well since he wasn't."
"Who's Draco Malfoy and what's the heir of Slytherin?" Cady couldn't look more confused.
"The heir of Slytherin is the descendant of one of the founders of Hogwarts and the only one who can open the Chamber of Secrets, where a basilisk lived that was supposed to kill all the Muggle borns in the school." Ginny didn't look to happy about the subject.
"And Draco Malfoy?" Cady prompted as she handed some ingredients to Ginny.
"One of the worst traitors to the school." Ginny spat adding a boomslang skin to the caldron.
"What did he do" Cady's voice was almost a whisper.
"Ask Harry. He's the only one that really knows." Ginny shrugged then looked Cady in the face. "Oh, I know. It's just that I'm not the right person to tell you."
"I don't even know this Harry Potter." Cady complained.
"You will. Just wait until the first Quidditch game. Gryfindor verses Hufflepuff. There's a spot on the team. Are you trying out?"
"I can't fly." Cady blushed as she stirred the foul liquid. "I never learned how."
"What!" Ginny looked so surprised at the fact that anyone couldn't know this. "Why?"
"My mom said she was too scared of me falling. She said that Dad and me were on his broom and I fell off when I was about four." Cady grimaced. "Apparently I got a concussion and broke an arm and six ribs."
"I'm going to teach you." Ginny said like there was no alternative. "You should be able to fly."
"I don't know." Cady bit her lip.
"It'll be fun." Ginny urged.
"Fine. I've been jealous of my friends forever, anyway." Cady smiled then grimaced. "We've got to work for a month on this?"
"Yep." Ginny scanned her battered copy of Advanced Potion Making. "It is rather foul. Maybe it's supposed to deter students from taking it." She joked.
"Are you two ladies working?" Professor Slughorn asked.
"Of course, Professor." Ginny answered.
"Good, good. Potion coming along well." Slughorn took a ladle full of the foul, goopy liquid and returned it to the steaming caldron.
Ginny and Cady then began working fervently at the potion, and stopped speaking till the end of the two hour period.
"Move your caldrons to the spare classroom, but keep them over flame!" Slughorn cautioned as they went to move their caldrons.
Both Ginny and Cady pulled out their wands and caused the caldron to levitate. Not high, but high enough to make it easier to move.
They gathered their books and headed to the great hall for lunch. As they entered Cady couldn't tear her eyes from the constantly changing ceiling.
Ginny laughed. "It's enchanted to look like the sky outside."
"Amazing." Cady breathed.
"Ginny! Cady!" The three girls that shared the sixth year Gryfindor dormitory with them waved them over.
"How'd you like your first day of potions" Kathleen grinned. She had flaming red hair, much like Cady's and Ginny's, and a face full of freckles. He eyes were a laughing, wild green that seemed to know everything.
"Sorry, we didn't wait up for you two." Sari grinned, flashing white teeth in her dark face. "Kath forgot something."
"I didn't forget." Kathleen shot back her curly red hair whirring around her face. "I just can't carry my Ancient Runes book with all my other stuff with out the bag splitting open."
"Ancient Runes?" Cady made a face.
"It's a fascinating subject!" Emily said it's defense. Her brown hair was pulled back into a ponytail that had wisps of hair escaping from the hair tie's hold. "It's as good as Ancient Runes anyway."
" Um, I don't take Arithmancy." Cady grinned. "I have Charms then."
" Whoops! Sorry!" Emily blushed. "Sorry, I'm a Muggle born and I still confuse things."
"Hey, for all I know I could be a Muggle born." Cady suggested.
"Not with your talent!" Sari shook her head causing her black locks to swing. "You made us all look like first years in Transfiguration."
"My school emphasized it more, that's all."
"Ginny!" Ron ran over. "Have you seen Harry?"
"No. Why?" Ginny rolled her eyes
"I need to know when the next Quidditch practice is so that I can arrange my schedule, that's all." Ron sauntered off to join the other seventh years.
"I could have told him it's tonight."
"You know, I still haven't seen this famous Harry Potter." Cady raised her eyebrows. "I'm beginning to doubt his existence."
"He's real alright." Kathleen grinned.
"Ask Ginny." Emily's eyes twinkled.
"She's the one who's been kissing him in the back hallways." Sari teased.
"Leave off!" Ginny laughed. "Anyway, he and I are over for the moment."
"But she's staying true to him." Kathleen informed Cady. "And don't you deny it, miss. In matters of love I have extraordinary powers." She pointed at Ginny with a long slender finger.
"It's true." Emily whispered.
"I'm confused!" Cady laughed.
"It works like this." Sari explained. "Kath can trace her family back to a fairy in the middle ages. It's got to be true, because she knows when you feel anything for anybody."
"On my ma's side." Kathleen twirled a strand of red hair. "In case you haven't guessed, I'm an Irish girl. Born and bred."
"I did think that. But in America, you can't assume person's background."
"Bet you can't guess where I'm from!" Sari teased.
"Um… let me think. I'm using my psychic powers and you are...Indian!"
" And give two thousand rupees to the girl with the red hair!" Sari grinned, and pretended to hand Cady imaginary money.
"You're all so special!" Emily whined. "I'm nothing but English!"
"Get over it! So am I." Ginny took a sip of her pumpkin juice.
"I'm English too, remember." Cady grinned. "I happen to have dual citizenship."
"What?" Sari asked, a look of pure bewilderment on her face.
"It's mostly a Muggle thing, but you're required to have it in the U.S." Cady explained. "It just says that I am under both the American and British Ministry. Mom didn't want me to have it but the American Ministry insisted on it."
"You people are confusing." Sari laughed.
"Jeez!" Ginny looked at her watch. "Sari, you take Charms, can you take Cady with you. I'm going to be late for Defense Against the Dark Arts. Cady, I'll come by to help you find the common room after that." She rushed out without waiting for a reply.
"I'd be glad to!" Sari called down the hall. "Come on, or we'll be late too."
"Lead on!" Cady laughed as she picked up her bag.
"Whatever." Sari rolled her eyes.
Charms was funny with chirpy Professor Flitwick, and Ginny came by to bring her to the common room for a free period. Afterwards Cady and Ginny made their way to the greenhouses for Herbology. And finally Cady was left at the common room while Ginny went to Quidditch practice.
"Hermione?" Cady asked nervously.
"Yes?" Hermione didn't look up from her work.
"I don't understand this. And I was told that you were the person to ask."
" You don't understands what?' Her head poked up.
"This thing about the treelings. Are they people or plants?"
"That an interesting question. See, the treeling is both human and plant. They have tough, brown skin and brown hair that has moss and leaves growing in it. They can move freely and they have emotions, but their blood is more like sap. And their insides are closer to that of a tree than a person."
"Thanks." Cady returned to her squishy chair and her table covered with her Herbology homework.
"Ready to fly, Cady? Ginny appeared over her shoulder about an hour and a half later. "Oh yeah!" Cady leapt from her chair and allowed Ginny to lead her outside.
They cover the basics on an old Comet Three Sixty. And in less than half an hour, Cady was zooming above the trees with Ginny.
"I don't think Charlie picked it up that fast." Ginny marveled.
"Who's Charlie?" Cady asked.
"My second oldest brother. The legendary Charlie Weasley. The pride of the Gryfindor Quidditch team, until Harry Potter that is."
"Oh."
"Ginny!" A black haired boy called from the ground, waving his arms.
Ginny waved back and dived down to him. Cady followed more out of idle curiosity than anything else.
Cady reached the ground before Ginny, and could do nothing but stare at the boy.
He had messy, jet black hair that flopped in front of emerald green eyes that were covered by glasses. He was tall and fairly good-looking. But something struck her so that she couldn't look away.
Ginny laughed as she came to the ground. "Cady, meet the famous Harry Potter. Harry, meet the new girl, Cady Greenwood."
"Hi Harry." Cady looked at he shoes.
Harry smiled weakly, as if he was trying to forget something, but still trying to look happy.
" You were pretty good up there."
"It's her first time on a broom." Ginny explained.
"Be sure to come to Quidditch tryouts tomorrow then." Harry genuinely smiled this time.
"I think I will."