Mistaken Identity

The castle had so many hallways and staircases, Olivia thought she would never be able to navigate them well enough to get to her classes on time. It was also filled with so many interesting things that Olivia found herself becoming distracted as she walked to breakfast the next morning. Like the suit of armors that turned their creaky heads as she walked passed them. Leticia told her that those same armors were bewitched during the holidays to sing Christmas carols. It helped that Leticia was with her she was able to keep her on the right course, towards the great hall. At that time Madame Nocturna started handing out the class schedules. Apperantely Olivia's test scores were so high that she had made it through to O.W.L. level on most subjects. She was given advanced potions, herbology , and D.A.D.A. She would also be taking transfiguration and charms with Leticia and Sylvia. The sixth year students at Hogwart's also had free periods throughout the day A little unnerved Olivia thought about the amount of work that they would probably be having during the school year, she doubted whether those periods would truly be free.

The three of them made their way to their first transfiguration class of the year. As they walked Leticia explained that Professor Frigler was fairly strict and did not allow to much nonsense in his classroom. Sure enough when Olivia walked in she noticed Frigler standing with his arms crossed in front of the blackboard. He was a short balding man with a round face and beady black eyes, his voice was surprisingly high as he began his lesson.

"Sixth year transifiguration is extremely complicated. We will begin the year with cross species transfiguration and the basics for human transformation. A more thurough analysis of human transfiguration will be reserved for NEWT level. If you look at the blackboard," at this moment writing appeared on the board behind him, "you will find the theoretical formula for cross species transfiguration. We must first understand the theory before we can begin to apply..."

The rest of the class was occupied by taking down extensive notes on the steps of the transfiguration process and calculating the formula for deducing success rate based on the proper use of the theory. By the time the class was over Olivia knew fully well that her free periods would probably be times for her to catch up on her work. Professor Frigler had given them two rolls of parchments on the mistakes that could produce lower success rates in cross species transfiguration. She was so busy taking notes and listening attentively that she had hardly noticed that Potter was in this class as well. She could hear him talking to a couple of guys while she put her books away. Leticia and Sylvia headed off for charms and Olivia thought about starting on her homework and possibly sending Mozart to her father during her free period. She was headed out the door when she heard a voice calling behind her.

"Is this yours?" It was Potter, he was holding out one of her parchment rolls, she had left it on the table.

She tried her hardest to control herself, she could hear her heart pounding in her ears, what was wrong with her? "Oh, yes it is, thank you." She nervously tuked her long hair behind her ear, and caught him staring.

"Um," he was looking straight into her eyes, it seemed as if he was struggling to speak, "I'm James Potter."

"Olivia Malfoy its a pleasure," she spoke slowly unable to break his gaze, he had amazing green eyes. Finally, "I guess I gotta go, um, thanks again for the parchment." She turned and headed for the door, she didn't stop until she got up to the common room. Finding a table near the window she sat down quickly, her knees felt weak. 'What was wrong with her?' she asked herself again. James was just a boy, she'd always been so cool with boys before, able to flirt freely without a hint of nervousness. Now, she could barely even speak to him. There was something different about him. Sure he was goodlooking with his messy brown hair and tall muscular frame, but something in his eyes spoke directly to Olivia. She had never felt anything remotely like this before, for anyone. She passed the rest of the period trying her best to read, when the bell signaling the start of lunch finally rang, she doubted she had read more than a page.

Down in the dining hall she caught up with Leticia and Sylvia.

"What do you have next?" Leticia asked spooning some fruit salad onto her plate.

"Double Potions." Olivia answered taking a bite of her turkey sandwich.

"Eww...i'm sorry." Leticia seemed tryuly sympathetic.

"It's alright I like Potions, its very precise, like math."

"I stand by my 'eww' from before I never liked it."

"It was my dad's favorite subject here," Olivia added. "He always talked about potions with such admiration. I guess I get it from him."

Lunch was over and they packed up their stuff. Leticia headed up to the common room for her free period, Sylvia out to the tallest tower for divination, and Olivia down to the dungeons for potions, She struggled a bit in finding her way, there were so many halls, that by the time she got down to the classroom there were already a few students waiting outside the door. She saw Poppy standing there alone apperantely the rest of her group had not managed OWL's in potions, she motioned her over just as Olivia caught a glance of James talking to a stocky mousy brown haired boy.

"Oh I can't believe what happened to you, I'm so sorry," Poppy was trying her best to sound horrified, "Gryffindor! Its very strange indeed. You can't believe how sorry I am."

A little annoyed at Poppys obvious sarcasm Olivia told her that it wasn't so bad that she was in Gryffindor when the professor walked in. A short while later, Professor Nivaha had written the ingridients for a potion they had the rest of the class to complete. Unable to find a better solution Olivia had sat next to Poppy. Aside from the seating arrangement the class was quite entertaining only she and one other student had managed to get complete marks on their Warming Drought, which if done properly would provide the drinker with hours of warm comfort.

"Excellent job, Miss Malfoy, I see Ireland is keeping their students in line." Professor Nivaha said as she marked in her folder.

Feeling extremely proud of herself Olivia said goodbye to Poppy and headed up to the common room. She had some time before dinner so she decided she would send Mozart to her father. She found a piece of parchment and resolved that aside from telling him about the sorting and her schedule, she was also going to mention Poppy's mother to him, to see if he remembered her. She found Mozart perched up in the Owlery, Olivia also noticed a beautiful white owl a couple places up. She tied the parchment to Mozart's leg and gave him a pat on the head before he flew out the window. Seeing how it was such a nice day she figured she would spend the rest of the afternoon reading outside by the lake. She got her books and walked out to find a comfortable spot. There were quite a few people enjoying the last of the summer wheather so finding a nice patch of grass under a huge tree Olivia sat down and began reading.

A few chapters later Olivia closed her book determined to let her eyes rest for a while. There were a few people skipping rocks by the lake, several other's throwing around what looked liked a Fanged Frisbee, and a group of guys joking around and laughing a short distance away. Olivia noticed the mousy haired boy from before, she quickly scanned the group and imediately found James at it's center, talking the loudest and laughing the hardest, he had plenty of attention. She couldn't blame them he seemed so charasmatic. She watched them a while longer before she decided to start reading again, she was halfway through the page when she felt someone approach her. Looking up she noticed the mousy haired boy.

"Aren't you Sophia Dotson, the model," he asked. Up close Olivia noticed that he was much more broad, and by the way his shirt hugged his body she could tell he was well built.

Half laughing Olivia said, "No I'm not, sorry to dissapoint you."

"I'm Rodrick Lupin," he held out his hand.

"Olivia Malfoy," she said shaking it.

At that moment James appeared, he looked a little annoyed and flushed. "Is he bothering you?"

"No not at all."

Rodrick looked at James and spoke to him before he walked away, "Your right James she is beautiful."

Olivia did not know who was blushing more. Her face was extremely warm so she tried to cover it with her book, James laughed nervously and tried to look away.

"I'm sorry about that."

"Don't apologize he was really quite nice, mistaking me for a model and all." She laughed quickly trying hard not to make it sound as though she had really believed him.

"Rod is alright. He can be a little thick headed sometimes." He stood watching her before he said, "I guess I'll see you around."

"Yes okay, bye." Was it her imagination or did he sound hopeful when he said that? She watched James jog back to his group where he gave Rod a friendly push. She knew she wouldn't be reading any more so she decided to go back inside.

That night after dinner Olivia told Leticia what had happened. They were sitting in the common room doing their homework, Olivia hoped that Leticia would offer her some sort of insight on James.

"Ohh, he likes you." Her eyes were wide with excitement.

"James is probably the most popular guy in our class if not in the school, all the girls like him, but he's only just dated a few," It was Sylvia talking she was working on her Herbology paper and kept crossing out her work, "If it wasn't for his being such a nice guy I probably would say he didn't think anyone was good enough for him, but he isn't like that at all. Maybe he's just been waiting for the right girl."

" Or maybe he just wants to make sure that girls don't just like him because he's Harry Potter's son," added Leticia.

Olivia had heard the name a few times in her life, mostly from people at school. All she new was that Harry Potter had defeated one of the most evil wizards of all time. She supposed that this would make alot of girls curious about James but she knew it couldn't be the only reason. Smiling to herself, Olivia thought if she could be the right girl for him. James was definately someone whom she would love to get to know. She wondered whether they would have anything in common, not that it would matter. She was eager to see if anything would progress and she thought about the various ways in which she could help James along, after all, she was a Malfoy and there was hardly anything that she wanted that she couldn't get.

The rest of the week passed by fairly quickly, so Olivia had little or no time to think about James. The rest of her courses proved to be extremely challenging, especially D.A.D.A. There were far more spells and jinxes that Olivia had anticipated and the Professor Grandhorn was already talking to them, about non-verbal spells. She spent most of her free time keeping a little ahead of the challenging material, it helped somewhat the she shared this class with James as well.

It was during breakfast on Friday that she noticed Mozart flying towards her with the rest of the mornig owls. She also happened to notice the beautiful white owl approach James across the table,she should have figured he would own something that beautiful. She quickly untied the letter from Mozart's leg knowing it was from her father and eager to read what he had written. Leticia and Sylvia reached out to pet Mozart telling him how handsome he was. She noticed him hold his head up in a proud sort of way and then ceremoniously dip his beak into Leticia's goblet before he flew away.

Opening up the letter Olivia read:

My Dearest Daughter,

First of all let me tell you that I am so glad that you have found Hogwart's a reasonable place. I can't begin to explain how sorry I am for having you start over in a new school.

Now about the sorting, it is true that for generations the Malfoy family has been in Slytherin house, but your placement in Gryffindor comes as no surprise to me. As you can tell, from what I've told you about my parents, you are nothing like them. Each house accepts students not only based upon their skills but also upon their character. SInce a lot of the times family members tend to have the same traits they get placed into the same house. But as you can obviously see that is not always the case, and now you are the first Malfoy to be placed differently. I am rather surprised that you were not placed into Ravenclaw being as smart as you are, but the hat is never wrong, I'm sure you will live up to the Gryffindor name.

As for Parkinson. it is true that her mother and I were in school together, I guess you could say that we were sort of an item. But besides that there is nothing more to tell so don't worry yourself to much about it.

Take care of yourself, and remember that I love you with all my heart.

Your father,

Draco Malfoy

There was something that her father had mentioned in the letter that made Olivia uncomfortable. If a person was sorted into a house based upon their abilities and their character, then there was a disturbing conclusion that was forming in her head. She thought about the way her father had described her grandparents. Even though she was sure he had glossed over alot of details for her sake, she knew that they were not the nicest people. And then looking around and finding Poppy and her group she remembered the way they spoke to each other and to other's, they were for the lack of a better term, mean. And then there was Demitri and his group who had gone out of their way to pick on someone smaller, and less experienced. That group was not only mean, but they seemed to get joy out of making other's feel bad. She was thinking of all of this trying to find something that might prove her conclusion wrong, because when she really looked at it, her father had been placed into Slytherin house just as they had been.

She decided she would ask Leticia to tell her everything she knew about Slytherin house. She would possibly even ask Poppy what she knew about her mother's relationship with her dad. She hoped that her father was telling the truth, that there was nothing more to tell.