"BEEP BEEP BEEP BEEP"
Annie groaned from under her duvet, and stuck her arm out from underneath the covers, clumsily hitting her bedside table until she made contact with her alarm clock, which she proceeded to hit viciously until its caterwauling was abruptly silenced.
She sighed peacefully at the blissful silence, and lay there for a minute or two, contemplating whether she felt like drifting off to sleep again.
Damn stupid alarm clock! There was no way she was going to be able to get back to sleep now. Throwing the covers off herself, Annie continued to stay lying down, letting her eyes adjust to the morning light. As her gaze drifted round her room, she caught sight of a square of colour in her peripheral vision. She turned onto her side to investigate, and gazed at the sign which she realised she had put on the side of her bedside table the night before, deliberately so that she'd see it in the morning. Annie's eyes widened in horror as she read: GET UP! HOGWARTS TODAY!.
"Merlin's pants!" she cried as she fell out of bed in shock, finally registering the time and date.
It was 9 o'clock, the train left at precisely 11… and she wasn't even packed.
Annie hastily scrambled round her room, desperately trying to find something that she could wear, she knew they would be in their school robes within hours but she at least wanted to make a good impression on the platform. She plucked items of clothing from all around her room, as she flicked her wand and sent all the books flying into her trunk.
After another ten minutes she had finally found something she could wear, which she lay neatly out on her bed. She swished her wand, and all her remaining clothes for the rest of the year flew neatly into her suitcase. She shoved all of her witch beauty products inside and then any miscellaneous items on top.
Annie rushed next door into her dance studio, grabbed her music system before she could forget it and hurried back to her room where she then proceeded to fit it into her trunk.
It was lucky that she had enough sense to put an unidentifiable extension charm on her suitcase, she thought, there was no way that she would of able to fit it all in otherwise, not with her dance and Quidditch stuff anyway.
Annie stood back from her trunk, with a satisfactory smirk tugging at the edge of her lips. She checked her watch and grinned realising that all that had only taken her twenty minutes. That must be some kind of a record! She had just enough time for an extremely quick shower. And with that she ran to the bathroom.
In the shower Annie contemplated how annoyingly fast the rest of her holiday had gone. She had seen Niamh practically every day, and each day Niamh had asked her to dance. She had managed to escape with only showing Niamh a couple more dance sessions, and had mainly distracted her with Quidditch and shopping. She had narrowly avoided meeting up with the Weasley-Johnsons, by insisting to her mother that she hadn't got all her school books, so she had managed to escape meeting Fred for a short while.
Annie had trained daily for dance, and most afternoons she went to Niamh's house to practice Quidditch, under the over enthusiastic eye of Mr Finnegan, much to Niamh's displeasure.
She had also managed to sneak in a few visits to her dad at work, like she used to do when she was younger, helping him in his office and wandering round the other ministry departments. It also had the plus side of escaping her mother's clutches every once in a while.
Yesterday she had had to say goodbye to a tearful Imogen… again, which was never easy. Although this time, there lack of contact wouldn't be so long, and they promised to visit each other in the Christmas holidays.
Annie hadn't had much contact with Pierre though which bugged her slightly, though hopefully their communication would improve when they were both back at school, not being distracted by their families.
As Annie got out of the shower and dried herself off, a gnawing sensation began to grow in her stomach. Unsure if this was hunger or nerves she tapped her wand on her head twice, causing her hair to de-tangle, then she tapped her head once more, causing a gust of warm wind to instantaneously dry her hair, leaving it to fall softly to below her shoulders. She applied a light layer of make-up and checked herself quickly over in the mirror.
She rushed back to her bedroom where she proceeded to change hurriedly, into a pair of snug black jeans, with a floaty cream top, tied at her waist with a brown cord. She slipped on her brown boots before glancing round at her room, checking she hadn't forgotten anything, before waving her wand and sending her trunks down the stairs.
"Annie HURRY UP! We have to leave in five minutes and you haven't even had breakfast yet!" Katie shouted from the kitchen.
Annie closed her bedroom door and rushed down to the kitchen, following her trunk.
"Oh you look nice" Katie said, sounding slightly surprised.
"Oh ta ma, so I don't usually?" Annie teased, heading over to the counter where Katie had laid out a plate of pancakes for her.
"You know what I mean…" Katie said impatiently, but smiled none the less.
Annie did know what she meant. For most of the holidays she had resembled a troll through sheer laziness. She didn't really see a point in making an effort to look nice when all she would be seeing would be her family, who after all had seen her when she was born and resembled a naked Niffler. So she had simply not made any effort.
"I'm deeply offended mother" Annie dramatically sighed, before taking a massive bite out of her pancake.
"I'm sure you are"
Dean chuckled upon hearing this exchange as he entered the kitchen.
"All ready to go girls? I thought we could all go to the station together, seeing as it's your first and last year at Hogwarts Annie" Dean said with a wry smile.
"That sounds lovely, or at least it would be if Annie was ready" Katie said pointedly to Annie, who let out a sound of indignation and tried to pull a hurt face, which was slightly ruined by the fact that her mouth was full of pancake, meaning she ended up looking more like a sad, chubby chipmunk, causing both her parents to laugh.
Annie swallowed her last mouthful of pancake with some effort, before jumping up, and placing her plate in the sink and hurrying over to stand by her trunks.
"See! I'm ready" she said childishly.
Her parents both chuckled before heading over to her. Dean picked up her suitcase, and all three linked hands.
"Right then, here we go" Dean said before turning on the spot and pulling Katie and Annie along with him into nothingness.
Annie's ribs seemed to crush into her lungs, so that she felt as if she was being squeezed through a very small tire, and just as the discomfort became unbearable, it vanished.
They had apparated into a side alley behind King's Cross station. Annie glanced around and followed her parents as they headed out of the alley and into the station.
As they were walking along the platform, Annie was gazing round at her surroundings and as a result nearly walked into the back of her parents who were standing in front of a wall and looking at her expectantly.
"What?" she asked in confusion.
Dean smiled at his daughter's confusion. "Watch" he ordered, before picking up her trunk and walking straight at the wall in front of her.
Annie gasped as her father melted through the wall. She glanced at her mother, knowing that she was expected to follow.
"It's fine Annie, it's the gateway to the Hogwarts platform" Katie smiled reassuringly.
Annie nodded and turned to face the barrier. She swallowed nervously, before fixing her eyes on the wall and walking straight towards it.
As she hit it she braced, expecting to find resistance, but merely walked through, as if there was no stone there at all.
As Annie emerged on the other side, she caught sight of Dean grinning at her about ten metres away.
She smacked his arm lightly as she reached him. "That wasn't funny!" she complained, just as her mother appeared through the barrier.
"It was slightly… your face when you came through" Dean chuckled, noting the blush creeping up Annie cheeks.
She smiled good humouredly, before turning round to face the platform in front of her.
It was certainly nothing like Beauxbatons.
At Beauxbatons, you were designated a certain pick up point for you and other students in your area, where a flying carriage awaited you, which once airborne became invisible to the Muggle's. This meant that you only ever travelled with people in your area, whereas here, you clearly travelled with the entire school.
The entire platform was crowded with families all saying farewell to each other. Owls were flapping in cages, cats were meowing loudly, young children were squealing and chasing each other, running around the adults legs, clearly too young to be heading off to Hogwarts.
"Come on, let's go find Niamh" said Dean cheerfully, clearly excited to be back here, as he headed off into the throng of students.
Annie following her parents, catching snippets of conversation.
"No Trevor, you are not allowed to bring any of your silly pranking things with you, it says so right here" the mother said, shaking a letter about.
"Yeah but mum, no one ever listens to those, let alone reads them" the son whined. "It's just a bit of fun."
"My answer is no and that's final" said the mother firmly before pulling her disgruntled son into a hug.
Another mother, further down the platform was sobbing, whilst clutching onto her embarrassed daughter.
Annie smiled before catching sight of Niamh further up the platform, she waved and headed over, rushing her parents.
"Hello my squiggly caterpillar" Niamh grinned, hugging Annie.
"Niamh why on earth am I a squiggly caterpillar?"
"Oh because this holiday you've been an an ugly caterpillar and now you're a pretty butterfly"
"Then surely I should be a squiggly butterfly…?"
"Stop trying to find flaws in my metaphor" Niamh grumbled as Annie laughed warmly at her friends logic as they both turned to say goodbye to their parents.
"Enjoy it Annie, this will only happen to you once so value each day" Katie said wisely before hugging Annie and kissing her on the cheek. Annie smiled and turned to her father who also gave her a huge hug before stepping back.
"Have fun Twig, I know you'll do great"
Annie smiled, before grabbing her trunk, and following an excitable Niamh onto the train.
As they made their way along the train, Annie caught glimpses of friends hugging and laughing, clearly pleased to be re-united after the long summer.
Niamh stopped outside a compartment blocking Annie's view.
"I've got a surprise for you Annie!" Niamh said, grinning mischievously, before pulling open the compartment door and heading in.
As Annie came into the compartment, several loud yells and squeals bombarded her ears and suddenly, she was being swarmed by an array of people.
"Annie!"
"You're back!"
"Damn you got hot!"
"This is so exciting!"
"All right everyone, let the poor girl breath" Niamh called out, over the crowd. For once Annie was grateful for Niamh's foghorn voice, glad it was being put to good use.
As the hoard of people drew back, Annie smiled, drinking in the sight of her old friends.
The compartment only contained four people, which was surprising due to amount of noise they had just made.
Dom Weasley was sat by the window, her long straight strawberry blonde hair cascading over her shoulders in an elegant waterfall, her cornflower blue eyes twinkled as she grinned at Annie, before getting up to hug her.
Next to her was Rose Weasley, whose wild red curls looked as uncontrollable as ever, although at least her hair was no longer bushy. Her freckles had appeared over the summer and her brown eyes looked warmly at Annie, smiling all the while.
Opposite Rose and Dom sat two boys with ruffled black hair, quite clearly brothers. James Potter was sat by the window, his hazel eyes looked at her cheekily and a large grin was plastered on his face, whereas Albus Potter was getting up to hug her, his emerald green eyes crinkled at the corners as he hugged her, so enthusiastically, he knocked his round glasses askew.
Niamh pushed past Annie and sank down on the seat next to Albus and levitated her trunk clumsily up onto the rack above their heads causing wary glances to be thrown her way, each worried that her trunk might crash onto their heads.
Annie followed before plonking herself down opposite Niamh and looking at everyone's expectant and smiling faces.
"It's so good to be back" She sighed contentedly gazing round at them all.