First Day at Hogwarts as a sixth year. 11:40am
My day, so far, has reached world-record levels of horridness.
When I woke this morning, I was certain the day would be a wondrous one.
I awakened to the melodies of songbirds outside my window. I wrenched open the curtains to allow the unadulterated sunshine illuminate the dormitory, casting a golden aura over my nicely folded socks and my teddy bear.
My robes lay ironed and folded in the open trunk at the foot of my bed, ready to put on. My shoes were at the end of my bed, shiny and polished.
I had a lovely long shower, with hot water (Nina wasn't awake yet)
My hair did everything I wanted it to, for once, and I managed to get it into a high ponytail without major incident.
The common room was near empty, and I didn't trip up over anything trying to get to the portrait hole.
So I, make-up carefully put on face, hair looking just right, robes tidy, prefect badge pinned on, squeaky clean with my books all organised in my book bag, was ready for the day and already convinced it was to be a perfect one.
Oh, how laughably incorrect I was.
I stepped out of the portrait hole only to be knocked off my feet by a squat little boy, who was speeding down the corridor in a blur of mousy brown hair and black robes.
"Excuse me!" I tried to disentangle myself from my book bag.
I stood and looked down the hall in the direction my assaulter had come, to see a group of Slytherins puffing on after him.
"Hey! You!"
They reached the portrait hole and stopped.
McNair, Avery and Pucey glared at me with narrowed eyes. Quite an intimidating and very unpleasant sight so early in the morning. However, I stood my ground.
"What the hell do you think you're doing?" I placed my hand on my hip and frowned at them.
"Going to breakfast. Is that illegal now, Prefect?" Pucey sneered at me, putting an unpleasant emphasis on the word 'Prefect'. Avery giggled. I could feel myself turning red.
"Thats interesting. You've been at this school, how long? Seven years, and you still don't know the location of the Great Hall? If you seek breakfast, I suggest you travel in the opposite direction and stop chasing people madly through the corridors."
I had them now. The Great Hall was in the direction they had just come from.
McNair scowled, and said
"We were taking a shortcut."
I raised an eyebrow.
"Uh huh. And what shortcut might that be?"
But before they could reply, we were interrupted by a very loud bang The sound of an explosion came from the Great Hall, accompanied by a tremor, which caused me to fall to the floor.
And when I got up, they were gone.
I shook my head, and ran to the site of the noise.
I reached the Great Hall to find the house tables upturned, food on the floor and breakfasters confused and, in many cases, also on the floor. Everything was covered with soot, odd looking green mush, and a few articles of pancake were smoking on the ground.
I spotted Nina, who was patting Sarah on the back, features distorted into an expression of disgust as her blonde companion retched violently on the floor.
"Ninny!"
She looked up and I ran over to her.
"What happened?" I asked.
"What does it look like?" she growled.
"Erm... a whirlwind hit the room? You had too much alcohol and hexed the Hall into oblivion? Someone has bowel issues causing a mini hurricane and simultaneously resulting in a stench powerful enough to bring on nausea? Don't look at me like that. I don't have 'Clairvoyant' written on my bloody forehead, you know." I said.
Nina scowled.
"Someone threw something onto the tables, and they blew up. Big bang, ground shakes, green flash. And I hadn't even had my coffee yet. That bloody Potter and his bum-boys. I've no doubt it was them."
Nina scowled. I put her mood down to lack of caffeine.
I, remembering the Slytherins, thought that maybe, for once, Potter was not the culprit. But now was not the time to reason with Nina, if I didn't want my head bitten off.
"What about Sarah?" I asked.
"Oh, that. She ate some very bad bacon. She was like this before the explosion" Nina replied. Sarah nodded feebly between retches.
"Let's get her to Madam Pomfrey." I said, and we each grabbed her by a shoulder and helped her limp out of the corridor, trying not to get vomit on our robes.
