Chapter Two: Smile Like You Mean It
By: ben 'n' jerry
Disclaimer: I do not own, nor am I affiliated with Harry Potter. I also don't own any of the music or artists I mention in any of these stories. I will make a point of pointing out any orginal lyrics or poetry. I do own that which you do not recognize.
Smile Like You Mean It belongs to The Killers
Save some face, you know you've only got one.
Change your ways while you're young.
Boy, one day you'll be a man.
Oh, girl, he'll help you understand...
I awoke in the early hours of the morning, and just lay on the ground watching the rain fall. It was supposed to be July, but I didn't really care. There's nothing that annoys me more than when the sun comes out in the middle of the day after a gloomy, grey morning. It seems rude, almost.
I had actually only arrived the night before, so I didn't even know who was really home this summer. Mrs Weasley seemed a bit fragile for some reason, vulnerable, almost, when I mentioned the unusual silence, so I stopped questioning her. After spending so much time with an emotionally wrought Ginny, I knew that the Weasley women were not to be pushed. It worked out pretty well: I didn't press for details on the quiet house, and she returned the favour when I showed up unannounced in the middle of the night after not having been there for more than a year.
Hermione was asleep on the queen-sized bed next to Ginny, which was why I had slept on the floor with a complete jumble of blankets- mismatched colours and fabrics didn't really matter in this house.
If Hermione was here, Harry and Ron were probably here too, which was a welcome change from the previous summer. Perhaps the keeping-Harry-safe issue had finally been resolved, but I doubted it. I was beginning to awaken to how hard the floor really was, and becoming more and more uncomfortable by the second, so I wriggled out of my warm cocoon and stumbled to my feet. I grabbed my towel and got to the bathroom before anyone could possibly have used the warm water.
The hot water stung against my bare skin, and I tilted my head back, letting it take me over. I love showers. I actually read somewhere that they were used to treat schizophrenics, who are calmed by the alternating hot and cold spray. It doesn't really calm me, but it makes me kind of lightheaded, which I suspect slows my heart rate hence a lack of oxygen, and I think that that might be the purpose of the whole exercise. Not lacking oxygen, I mean, but a difference in heart rate and adrenaline.
I got out of the shower, changed into my low-rise black jeans and pulled a black and white striped golf shirt over my head. I quickly did my makeup, which includes black mascara, chocolate brown eyeliner,silver eyeshadow and clear pink lipgloss, then grabbed my pyjamas and headed back to Ginny's room.
Neither Hermione nor Ginny was awake yet, so I just dug out my iPod from my bag and leaped like a cat on padded feet down the stairs. I rolled my eyes at the sunlight that was now streaming through the window, but settled onto the windowsill anyway. Maybe it was a sign that I would start this year on the right foot. I stared out of the window, relaxing to the sweet sound ofElliott Smithcrooning in my head.
I think I may have drifted off for a while, because the next thing I knew I was rudely awakened for the second time this morning.
"Astrid!" I heard Ginny's unmistakeable squeal from the general direction of the staircase. I lazlily stretched myself out, like a lion yawning in the African sun. I squinted from my spot by the window, my limbs were like lead.
"Hey, Gin!" she came running and picked me up in a hug. I'm smaller than most people, only just five feet. "I didn't want to wake you up when I got here, you looked all snugly and fuzzy all tucked in like that."
Harry, Ron and Hermione were just behind her, Ron practically grunting in his typically adolescent anxiousness to get to the kitchen- his breakfast awaited.
"Morning," I said cheerily. OK, maybe it was mock-cheerily. So sue me.
"Are you one of the return exchange students?" Hermione asked, remaining on the stairs, "From Cypress?" She seemed so official and professional; I wondered if she would end up as Head Girl next year.
Harry made quite the undignified snorting noise, more reminiscent of something Ron would do, really. "Hermione, that's Lovegood. How can you not recognize her? She took half of our classes in fourth year!"
"Oh! I'm so sorry, Astrid. Welcome back," she said, smiling almost automatically, despite obviously not meaning it.
I grinned despite myself. The year before I went on exchange I had beaten Hermione in every fourth year course I had taken. She didn't like me, and I knew it. I didn't really care either.
I'm smart. Deal with it.
When Mrs Weasley came in from the garden, several owls followed behind her. As she busied herself with blueberry waffles I opened my Hogwarts letter, where I found a bronze badge with a 'P' embossed on it in my envelope. Prefect. The letter which informed me I had to be resorted again, a condition I had forgotten I had agreed to. I was actually happy.
The growing distance between Ginny and I was moving from my mind to reality now, and as we talked and laughed, I started to realize that the façade I had kept up wasn't as strong as it used to be. I had been away so long that the comfort with which I cheered them up and made them laugh was starting to fail me. Being isolated would be better for me than to risk my mask slipping.
I heard Ginny begging Mrs Weasley in the background to take us to Diagon Alley earlier than she had meant to, begging with a resilience that would not have presented itself in the hollow, introverted little Weasley girl I had met in first year. I felt strangely proud of the strong-willed nagging she kept up, feeling as if I had somehow strengthened her character in the timethat I had known her, a time that now seemed truly short in relation to everything else that had happened.
"What do you think, Astrid?" my head snapped up and I saw the attention of the length of the table was focused on me. I was, after all, the newest guest, and I knew I bore a strange authority with my out-of-place foreign edgeand mysterious night-time arrival.
"Sure," I grinned, playing along to what I knew Ginny wanted me to say, "I actually need an all-new set of books this year anyway, my Advanced Transfiguration text from Cypress is practicall falling apart."
"Advanced Transfiguration?" Ginny asked, gesticulating a bit with her fork. I watched as it glinted in the sunlight that I had found so unwelcome earlier today.
I nodded, and tore open the walls of one of the small squares in my waffle, then watched the syrup seep into an empty cell next to it.
"I didn't know Hogwarts even had a course like that," Ginny stated, absently flailing her fork in her right hand.
"They don't," I had actually broken records and completely rewritten the book on rearranging an impossible timetable when I was at Cypress. Of course nothing that compared to Hermione's Time-Turner experience in my second year, but my grandfather had made some allowances forhis gifted granddaughter.
"But I took mostly AP courses in France, they provided their own textbooks and curriculums, so we could have literally everything we could ever need to achieve. I've been using mostly second hand stuff my grandparents just had around the house.The point being that I can't use my Transfiguration textbook anymore even if it does have everything I would need this year. I'll probably just get a regular seventh year text, you know the series they started us with? By Miranda Goshawk?"
Even Hermione seemed slightly dumbstruck. I felt a smug wave of superiority wash over me, and I decided to continue.
"My professor told me that Goshawk's series is far more rudimentary than they generally prefer, but it gives you a very sturdy basis for a continuation of your studies."
"What did they recommend?" Hermione had finally found her tongue.
"Oh, mostly supplementary reading, I guess. I'm not really sure what's available right now, but if we do end up going to Diagon Alley I could pick out what I needed instead of having to get my books at Hogsmeade."
Ginny gave me the thumbs-up sign behind her mother's back, one I didn't return. She probably thought it was just to keep her mother fromknowing, but the truth is that I didn't feel like playing her game.
The conversation turned away from me again; I seemed to have shocked everyone enough for one day, so my thoughts turned to other things. I ran my thumb over the glinting badge, a shadow of a true smile creeping across my face. For the first time in a long time I was actually looking forward to seeing Hogwarts again.
AN: Please review! This is the second version of this story, and I like it way better... what do you guys think? And I know I posted this with Draco as a main character, I swear he'll be coming in soon. Pleeaassee review, this is my first fanfic I've ever posted :) I am planning on writing responses to any reviews I get in the next chapter!
