Again, sorry about the wait :/ I hope to start writing again more this summer. I really like this chapter and I hope you do too!

"Alex! It's the first day, of all days you cannot be late today!"

"Oh well I can always try again next year."

"Get up! I refuse to let you be late!" This was their first day of school routine. It never failed that Harper would arrive at the Russo household decked out in her back to school outfit, only to find Alex still in bed. Many more stern words would come from Harper while she pulled Alex's ankles from the bed while Alex moaned and hung on to the headboard.

"Alex! Alex!"

"Alex! Alex!" She finally fell to the floor with a thud at the end of the bed.

Looking around in deep confusion, "Where am I?" Alex said, rubbing her head.

"You're still in the girls dormitory is where you are!" came the irritated voice of Hermione who was standing over Alex with her hands on her hips.

Alex looked up at Hermione with much annoyance and sighed.

"You have 15 minutes. I will meet you in the common room," Hermione stormed out.

Alex began to crawl back into bed, "they wouldn't miss me for one day.."

"I heard that!"

Alex tried to dress, quickly apply light make-up, then fluffed her hair a couple times before rushing down the stairs to the common room.

"Done!"

"Great, now let's go to class," Hermione spun around to headed for the door.

"What about breakfast?"

"You missed it. Lucky for you I was there and received our schedule and came back for you. We have Herbology first so we'd better do."

Alex followed Hermione outside and all the way to the greenhouses in silence where they met up with the rest of their house."There you are," called Ron.

"Morning," Harry smiled at Alex as she placed herself next to him. "Rough morning?"

"Time change." Alex answered, earning her a puzzled look, but she was saved from answering by Professor Sprout.

The next hour passed with groans and gags as they proceeded to squeeze the puss out of bubotubers. When the bell sounded, they all got up and hurried out to their next class.

The ground was wet and muddy on their way to the edge of the Forbidden Forest where Care of Magical Creatures was to take place. Alex couldn't imagine how spending the next hour outside in the mud could possibly be any fun. But Harry, Ron, and Hermione seemed oddly excited to see the teacher, and jumped right into conversation.

This teacher, what was his name? Alex looked down at her schedule, Hagrid. Professor Hagrid was in no way a human, and had she not met giants once before, he would have easily been the tallest person she had ever seen. In addition to his massive height, he had a very tangled beard that hung darkly over his torso. His clothes were just as dirty and worn, giving him an odd look; also he talked funny. When he walked, he seemed to stomp, and almost wobble as if he had never actually learned how to control himself at this height. The people here just got weirder and weirder.

"Alex!"

Alex snapped out of her trance just in time to dodge shots of sparks coming from the backend of a nasty shell-less lobster looking thing. "They're called blast-ended skrewts, and ya may want to watch where yer walkin' from now on," it was the big, booming voice of Hagrid. "They just hatched and now ya get to raise 'em!"

"And why would we want to raise them?" The cold voice came from the blond boy she had never gotten the opportunity to talk to yet. Finally she could introduce herself, and they already had something in common: they both weren't the least bit excited about this class.

The group of mean looking Slytherins followed in a pack behind him as he questioned Hagrid further on the point of raising such a horrid creature. Had Alex not been so far out of her element, this was the sort of thing she would have jumped in on, been the leader of in fact, but now she was just confused. It occurred to her for the first time that her new friends were nothing like her. And so she decided not to introduce herself just yet.

For the rest of class, Alex remained inside her head as she very carefully fed eggs and snakes to a nasty little skrewt that Hagrid assigned to her. There was no end to the groaning and complaining around her. Today was not shaping up to be a very good day.

On the way back to the castle, Alex was surprised to hear that not even Hermione- who had begun to make a school-loving reputation for herself- had enjoyed the lesson.

Lunch was about the best thing that had ever happened to Alex, this place was nothing like home.

"Is this the new stand on Elf Rights? You're going to make yourself puke instead?" It was Ron questioning Hermione on why exactly she was suddenly eating so much.

"I just want to get to the library."

Ron protested and Hermione got up and left them with a "See you later." The three of them were stunned, but Ron and Harry seemed unsurprised.

"Hermione Granger skipping class?" Alex snorted.

"Naw, she dropped Divinations after last year," Harry said, gathering up his belongings. "Speaking of Divinations, we'd better get going."

Hope you liked it! I tried to follow the book as much as possible while adding my own spin on it. If you have any suggestions, feel free to message me or leave it in a review. Have a wonderful week! :)