Ahhh... That fateful day I left for Hogwarts, I shall never forget. The baby was crying, Mum was yelling, the kettle was boiling, the door was ringing, dad was sleeping, and the toast was burnt. Oh, yes, it iwas/i fateful.
This whole time, while I was weaving my way through the chaos, I was thinking, igreat. I will have to miss my first year at Hogwarts, and join next year, all because of this./i
But my Mum, being the ambitious one she is, would not allow me, over her dead body, to miss my first year at Hogwarts. So she hustled me out to the minivan so fast, I barely had time to say,
"Uh, Mum, we just left Okalani and dad behind."
"Oh, your dad will be just fine. He can handle that baby. You should have seen him when you were born, he was seventeen and no idea of even how to ihold/i a baby, let alone take icare/i of one. He will be ifine/i. "
Poor dad. Poor baby, I should say.
But anyway. We arrived at King's Cross Station approxamitly twenty minutes later, at which point mum took off, her bushy brown hair whipping in the wind.
"Come on, Arielle, we have two minutes!" We just got there, and had roughly thirty seconds for my mum to kiss me good-bye and wish me a good term. As I jumped on the train, feeling very hobo-y, I thought I caught a glimpse of Cho and Harry waving goodbye at a window. I scouted out this compartment as quicky as I could, and sure enough, I foung Summer sitting there, her feet up on the seat and a magazine open in front of her. Without looking up, she said,
"Good, you are here. I was beginning to think you were a no-show." She took her legs off the seat and put her magazine away. She faced me and smiled as she said "What do you think Hogwarts will be like?"
"Big. Dark. Scary." We both giggled. We spent a while chatting like that, about whatever topics came to our minds. After a while, Summer fell back onto the seat and reached into her pocket. She pulled out a tube that I could see was labeled, 'Sheer Cranberry'. She swiped it over her mouth and her lips came out looking very very shiny and wet.
"Oh the shinyness!" We both laughed.
"Do you want some? I have tons of new stuff that I haven't used yet." She rummaged through her bag. She pulled out a pink one. "How does 'Pretty in Pink' sound?"
"Sounds pink. I'll take it." She tossed it over and I caught it. I too, swiped it over my lips. I couln't see them, but I assumed they were as shiny as Summer's. Suddenly, she gasped.
"I know! I'll do a makeover on you! I can teach you some more stuff later. What do you think? I will make a great first impression on all the older students, and some of the new ones."
I knew it couln't hurt. "Why not?" She told me to lie on the seat and be still. For about fifteen minutes she sprayed me with several different concoctions, eyeliner, lipgloss, eyeshadow, mascara, you name it, she had it. After the operation was done, I have to say I looked pretty good.
We had just settled down again when we were rudely interuppeted by the blonde girl we saw in the book shop came it, and quickly shut the frosted glass door behind her. She whispered,
"Hide me!" and quickly sat. I was about to ask from whom she was hiding, but my question was answered when an ugly boy pressed his face to the glass. She was brave, and looked him in the eye. He then said something that I never would come out someone's mouth, just because of their last name.
"Hey Mini-Malfoy, killed any Mudbloods lately?" He snickered, then ran off. I suppose he thought it was funny. At this remark, the girl put her head into her hands and began to cry.
"Why is this happening? How come they are doing this to me? I didn't ask for Draco Malfoy to be my father!"
"You know what, when me and Summer saw you in Flourish and Blotts yesterday, we thought mean thoughts too, because of your father. But I've decided it was very wrong of us, and we want you to hang out with us." Summer shot me a look. I shot one back saying, "What should we have done? Give her a chance."
Summer then began to speak.
"Mariah, right? Well, we have twenty minutes, let's give iyou/i a makeover so you can give an awsome first impression." She smiled at me.
"You really mean it?"
"Yes Mariah, she means it."
And so that was our beginning, the beginning of great times, and the beginning of bad times. Things would work out. They all had a meaning, and things are beginning.
So I knew, as we walked out of there later, our arms linked, that this was iour/i beginning, and no one ever could have predicted it.